E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View
Start the new year with a comic story of “passion requited” & “love attained.”
Persuasion (1818), Jane Austen’s final completed novel, is generally considered her most subtle and mature work. As a young woman, Anne Elliott fell in love with a captain in the Royal Navy but, taking the advice of her family, ended their engagement—and long regretted it. When she meets Captain Wentworth again years later, their circumstances have changed dramatically. Will their renewed relationship help Anne resolve her feelings or only make them stronger?
Fellows in this seminar will discuss Austen’s depiction of the competing loyalties to family and self; the tension between a fading aristocracy and a burgeoning meritocracy; the power of memory and the passage of time; the traits of true friendship; and much more. A close study of Persuasion, which Harold Bloom called a “perfect novel,” is a perfect way to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth.
Image: James Hook A Regency Pair: Man with Walking Stick, 1802
Dr. Scalia on the novel & democracy
This course is offered by Humanities at Hertog. It takes place biweekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, via Zoom, from 6 PM to 8 PM ET. Fellows will receive a $150 Amazon Bookshelf voucher contingent upon participation in the course and completion of a brief response paper. All course materials will be provided.
Faculty
Christopher Scalia
Christopher J. Scalia is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on literature, culture, and higher education. Prior to his role at AEI, Dr. Scalia was an English professor with a specialty in 18th-century and early 19th-century British literature.
Christopher Scalia
Christopher J. Scalia is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on literature, culture, and higher education.
A former English professor, Dr. Scalia specialized in 18th-century and early 19th-century British literature. He also spent three years as director of AEI’s Academic Programs department, where he led educational and professional-development programs and events for college students around the country. His articles, essays, and reviews on literature, music, higher education, and other topics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, Commentary, National Review, First Things, the Washington Free Beacon, the Times Literary Supplement, the Spectator World, and FoxNews.com, among other outlets.
Dr. Scalia is the coeditor of On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), and Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017). His forthcoming book, Eleven Conservative Novels You Must Read . . . but Probably Haven’t, will be published by Regnery Publishing in 2024.
Dr. Scalia has a PhD and MA in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has a BA in English with a minor in history from the College of William & Mary.
