Mansfield Park: Adaptation as Empathy
In this 7-week long virtual workshop, students will read and discuss Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park and two films related to it: Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, a 1990 comedy of manners set amidst contemporary New York City debutantes with deliberate thematic links to Austen’s novel. Using these films as a jumping off point, Margaret H. Willison will teach students to play with Mansfield Park as adaptors themselves, imagining smargarcenes from new perspectives, in different time periods, with different stakes. Through a combination of group discussion and in-class writing exercises, students will enrich their understanding of the text and develop empathy for even the most frustrating characters.
If you already love Mansfield Park, this is your chance to shout about it. If you have never read the book, this class will be an ideal way to encounter it for the first time. And, last but not least, if you have read but never loved Mansfield Park, consider this an invitation to heal your relationship to it in community. No one is required to know the text deeply or consider it faultless— you just need to believe that it is worthy of serious engagement.
If you would like to be a part of this class, but the cost is prohibitive for you, shoot me an email and we’ll see what we can figure out. Scroll down for further information about the class structure and schedule, missing class, materials needed, and how to reach out with any additional questions.
In this 7-week long virtual workshop, students will read and discuss Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park and two films related to it: Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, a 1990 comedy of manners set amidst contemporary New York City debutantes with deliberate thematic links to Austen’s novel. Using these films as a jumping off point, Margaret H. Willison will teach students to play with Mansfield Park as adaptors themselves, imagining smargarcenes from new perspectives, in different time periods, with different stakes. Through a combination of group discussion and in-class writing exercises, students will enrich their understanding of the text and develop empathy for even the most frustrating characters.
If you already love Mansfield Park, this is your chance to shout about it. If you have never read the book, this class will be an ideal way to encounter it for the first time. And, last but not least, if you have read but never loved Mansfield Park, consider this an invitation to heal your relationship to it in community. No one is required to know the text deeply or consider it faultless— you just need to believe that it is worthy of serious engagement.
If you would like to be a part of this class, but the cost is prohibitive for you, shoot me an email and we’ll see what we can figure out. Scroll down for further information about the class structure and schedule, missing class, materials needed, and how to reach out with any additional questions.
In this 7-week long virtual workshop, students will read and discuss Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park and two films related to it: Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, a 1990 comedy of manners set amidst contemporary New York City debutantes with deliberate thematic links to Austen’s novel. Using these films as a jumping off point, Margaret H. Willison will teach students to play with Mansfield Park as adaptors themselves, imagining smargarcenes from new perspectives, in different time periods, with different stakes. Through a combination of group discussion and in-class writing exercises, students will enrich their understanding of the text and develop empathy for even the most frustrating characters.
If you already love Mansfield Park, this is your chance to shout about it. If you have never read the book, this class will be an ideal way to encounter it for the first time. And, last but not least, if you have read but never loved Mansfield Park, consider this an invitation to heal your relationship to it in community. No one is required to know the text deeply or consider it faultless— you just need to believe that it is worthy of serious engagement.
If you would like to be a part of this class, but the cost is prohibitive for you, shoot me an email and we’ll see what we can figure out. Scroll down for further information about the class structure and schedule, missing class, materials needed, and how to reach out with any additional questions.
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For the first 6 weeks of the workshop, you’ll have 6-9 chapters of Mansfield Park to read for each weekly class. Our final class will focus on the book as a whole and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan.
In addition to class time, there will also be two optional group viewing parties:
Sunday, March 9th, 7pm ET — group viewing of Patricia Rozema’s 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park
Sunday, April 13th, 7pm ET — group viewing of Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan
If you cannot join the group viewing party, you will simply want to find time before the corresponding classes (Monday, 3/10 and Monday, 4/14) to watch the movies on your own.
Each class session will be broken out as follows:
15 minutes of introductory comments by Margaret
20 minutes of small group discussion
15 minutes of large group discussion
10 minute break
15 minute individual writing exercise
20 minutes of small group discussion
20 minutes of large group discussion
10 minutes of wrap-up / information sharing for next week’s class
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All seven class sessions will be recorded and made available to participants to watch or re-watch on their own time. If your schedule necessitates you missing all or part of any classes, we totally understand, and just appreciate a head’s up if possible.
If the class schedule simply does not work for you, you are welcome to consume the class through these recordings alone, but you will miss out on the small group discussion portions.
I will create a channel in our class Discord where folks who miss class can coordinate with others who may have missed class to arrange independent group discussions.
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A copy of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park to read (or listen to, if you prefer!).
For in-class discussions, we will use the Standard E-Books free edition of Mansfield Park as our common reference.
In addition, you will need a computer with a strong enough internet connection to support a streaming meeting and a Zoom account to access our classes.
Lastly, we will be using Discord as a space for discussion between class sessions and during our group viewing parties, so being willing to create an account with Discord and make use of it will be a large benefit to the class, although not a requirement.
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As stipulated at the end of the class description, I do not want cost to be a barrier to anyone attending the class. If you would like to participate, but $250 is beyond your means, please email me and we will work out a partial or full scholarship to make your participation possible.
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If you have any questions these sections have failed to address, please feel free to email me and I will try to respond to you as quickly as possible.