Course Details
Reading On The Farm
Dates will be avalible shortly
Personal Interest
Culture
Victoria University Community Continuing Education
Level 2, Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington City
After Hours
6:00pm - 8:00pm
6:00pm - 8:00pm
$120.00
Early Bird Payment Fee 19/07/11 $108.00
Early Bird Payment Fee 19/07/11 $108.00
Brancepeth, a large sheep station in the Wairarapa, had a subscription library in the late 19th century that was used by members of the Beetham family and their employees. The library and other station records offer a rare and marvellously detailed window into 19th-century reading tastes and the daily lives of station workers. You will learn about popular Victorian fiction, who was reading it and what they thought about it.
Target Audience:
This course is for people with an interest in local history, the Wairarapa and Victorian literature.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the course, students will have:
* discovered Victorian popular fiction, such as sensation novels, New Women novelists and novels of the city
* interpreted the relationship of these books to colonial New Zealand
* learnt about daily life and the social history of a sheep station in the 1890s.
Course Outline:
Topics for this course include:
* the history and composition of the Brancepeth library
* contentious fiction-New Women novelists
* bestsellers and popular reading on the farm
* the social history of Brancepeth in the 1890s
* marginalia and reader response.
Following the lecture series, there will be a field trip to Brancepeth library and sheep station in the Wairarapa.
Course Format:
Five evening sessions, which include a combination of lecture and discussion, followed by a field trip to the Brancepeth library and sheep station on the Saturday afternoon immediately after the last lecture. Participants will need to bring their own lunch.
Schedule:
Tuesday, 2 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 9 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 23 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Target Audience:
This course is for people with an interest in local history, the Wairarapa and Victorian literature.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the course, students will have:
* discovered Victorian popular fiction, such as sensation novels, New Women novelists and novels of the city
* interpreted the relationship of these books to colonial New Zealand
* learnt about daily life and the social history of a sheep station in the 1890s.
Course Outline:
Topics for this course include:
* the history and composition of the Brancepeth library
* contentious fiction-New Women novelists
* bestsellers and popular reading on the farm
* the social history of Brancepeth in the 1890s
* marginalia and reader response.
Following the lecture series, there will be a field trip to Brancepeth library and sheep station in the Wairarapa.
Course Format:
Five evening sessions, which include a combination of lecture and discussion, followed by a field trip to the Brancepeth library and sheep station on the Saturday afternoon immediately after the last lecture. Participants will need to bring their own lunch.
Schedule:
Tuesday, 2 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 9 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 23 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm Workshop
Professor Lydia Wevers is the Director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies. She has recently published Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World (VUP, 2010). She is a specialist on New Zealand and Australian literature and is currently working on Victorian fiction in the colonies.