Katherine Mansfield: Place and Displacement
Live online course, Thursdays 18 March–22 April 2027

Join us for a new course on the short stories of Katherine Mansfield. She grew up in New Zealand, with a period at school in London. As a young adult she moved to live permanently in Europe, especially England, France, and Germany. Mansfield wrote very powerfully about the places in which she lived, and she also has an acute sense of social ‘place’: in the family, in one’s class, in language. She explores how people fit (or not) into their ‘place’ of gender or sexuality, and how they cope with displacement.

These lectures will explore various meanings of place in her writing and the many ways in which people can feel placed, or displaced, in their lives.

Lectures (Order to be confirmed later)

• Claire Davison, Meanwhile … Elsewhere: Displacement in Mansfield’s stories
• Kate Eliot, Shelter in Place: Katherine Mansfield and Refuge
• Alison Hennegan, Katherine Mansfield and Displaced Persons
• Gerri Kimber, Before the Voyage: Katherine Mansfield in New Zealand
• Trudi Tate, Katherine Mansfield and Home
• Ellie Mitchell, Displaced Bodies: In a German Pension (1911)

Set Reading

Claire Davison, Meanwhile … Elsewhere: Displacement in KM’s stories
The Escape
Lady's Maid
At the Bay
A Married Man's Story
Honeymoon

Kate Eliot, Shelter in Place: KM and Refuge
A Dill Pickle
Je ne parle pas français
An Indiscreet Journey
Other stories tbc

Gerri Kimber, KM in New Zealand
Stories selected from this list (a PDF of set stories will be provided)
Die Einsame 
Juliet
Summer Idyll
Vignettes
Leves Amores
The Woman at the Store (written/drafted in 1907)
Vignette: Sunset Tuesday
Vignette: Westminster Cathedral 
Rewa
The Tiredness of Rosabel
Urewera Notebook

Trudi Tate, KM and Home
The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Prelude
The Garden Party
Other stories tbc

Ellie Mitchell, Displaced Bodies
In a German Pension stories, especially:
Germans at Meat
Frau Fischer
At Lehmann's
The Luft Bad
The Swing of the Pendulum

Course fees (include VAT 20%)

£320 full price
£290 students and seniors on a low income
£290 CAMcard holders
£290 Members of the Katherine Mansfield Society

Optional Further Reading

Claire Davison and Gerri Kimber, eds., Katherine Mansfield's French Lives (Brill Rodopi, 2016)
Claire Harman, All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (2023)
Gerri Kimber, Katherine Mansfield: The Early Years (EUP, 2016; 2025)
Gerri Kimber, Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life (Reaktion Books, 2025)
Delia da Sousa, Gerri Kimber and Sue Reid, eds., Katherine Mansfield and the Arts, Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 3 (EUP, 2011)
Claire Tomalin, Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life (2012)
Janet Wilson and Tracy Miao, eds., Katherine Mansfield and Germany (Routledge, 2025)

Please support independent bookshops or Bookshop.org when buying books for our courses. 

Recordings

This is a 6-week course, with a live online lecture and seminar each week. The lectures are recorded so that participants can listen again during the course, and for 2 weeks afterwards, if they wish. The seminars are not recorded.

Zoom link for the course

We will send you a Zoom link at least 24 hours before the course begins. Please let us know in good time if the link does not arrive, so that we can re-send.

If you cannot attend a course you have booked

Please note that, because places are limited, we cannot usually give refunds if you cannot attend a course. But if you contact us in advance, we might be able to transfer your booking to a different course.