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Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), New Zealand's most internationally famous author, was one of the pioneers of the avantgarde in the creation of the short story. Upon hearing that Mansfield had died, Virginia Woolf wrote: "I was jealous of her writing - the only writing I have ever been jealous of." In this seminar we will explore the life and works of Katherine Mansfield through her short stories, journal entries and letters. Special attention will be given to the context of modernism in Australia and New Zealand, to Mansfield’s involvement with the European avantgarde and British modernist circles, including the Bloomsbury Group, in order to appreciate “how aspects of what we now term modernism crystallized around certain colonial experiences (in particular, of exile and cultural alienation)“ (Elleke Boehmer).
Students are requested to purchase a copy of Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Stories (Penguin Classics edition; with a new introduction by Ali Smith;). A selection of critical texts and further sources will be made available to participants via a Moodle course. |
