[Vwoolf] Informal survey on teaching Eminent Victorians

ELIZABETH HIRSH elihir at msn.com
Mon Apr 7 08:43:05 EDT 2014


Hello Todd,

I've taught EV in grad classes on Bloomsbury and on Life Writing, as well as in an undergrad survey of British Lit 1900-1945. The grad students loved it, the undergrads not so much--some did, but Strachey's account of Apostolic succession and similar passages were too much for them. 

Elizabeth Hirsh
University of South Florida 

Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 7, 2014, at 6:43 AM, "Caroline Webb" <caroline.webb at newcastle.edu.au> wrote:
> 
> Dear Todd et al.,
>  
> I used to teach a double-credit course called “Victorian to Modern” that focused on the Bloomsbury Group and looked at how their work could be seen as responding, positively and negatively, to the work of their Victorian predecessors.  I included a section on biography quite late in the course and assigned Eminent Victorians, focusing on the lives of Cardinal Manning and Florence Nightingale, prior to Orlando.  In the course’s later incarnations I included a short snippet of Nightingale’s “Cassandra” a week or two earlier, when we were talking about attitudes to women, and also juxtaposed Strachey with Oscar Wilde’s essays. 
>  
> I loved teaching the course, which has disappeared with a curriculum revamp that removed all double-credit courses except one open-topic one that I hope to teach on this topic one day . . . Students responded reasonably well to EV, and were particularly interested in the portrait of Nightingale.
>  
> Regards,
> Caroline
> From: vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Pat Laurence
> Sent: Sunday, 6 April 2014 4:46 PM
> To: Avery, Todd; Unknown contact
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Informal survey on teaching Eminent Victorians
>  
> Dear Todd & Woolfians,
> 
> In a course on "Victorian Conversations," I've taught Strachey's Florence Nightingale in EV in conversation with a section of Gillian Gill 's Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale. It stimulates discussion of Strachey's debunking of Nightingale in the context of Victorian biography, as well as evolving views of accomplished women, Nightingale's extraordinary work in Crimea,  and biography now.
> 
> Best,
> Pat Laurence
>  
> 
> On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 7:43 PM, Avery, Todd <Todd_Avery at uml.edu> wrote:
> Friends,
> 
> I hope you all are well, that spring has sprung where you are (or that autumn is delightful a ways south of where I am, in New England) and I hope, too, that an inquiry about Lytton Strachey is appropriate for the list.  I'm really simply curious---this came up in a conversation with an editor---as to how widely and frequently Eminent Victorians is taught.  I'll look into this further, with publishers, but I thought I'd begin here, at the center of the canon, rather than "on the fringes" (the editor's phrase).
> 
> Many thanks for any information, however casual.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Todd
> 
> Dr. Todd Avery
> Associate Professor of English
> Coordinator, Online English B.A. Program
> University of Massachusetts Lowell
> O'Leary Library 481
> 61 Wilder Street
> Lowell, MA 01854
> 978-934-4184
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