Fielding's Amelia at last!

Hello All:

Thank you for your patience in our two-week hiatus--Spring Break is, alas!, over and so, thankfully, is our amazing conference. We are ready to roll up our brocaded coats, fluff our perriwigs, apply our patches, and tighten our shifts once again--in short, we're ready to get back to work at the eighteenth-century reading group!

This week we'll be reading Henry Fielding's lesser-studied novel, Amelia. <--Click on the title to access the full novel on Project Gutenberg (thanks, Kate, for the link!). You can also find the very first scholarly edition from Broadview Press on amazon relatively well-priced.

We also will likely have a special guest this week: Tracey may be bringing a prospective C18 graduate student in the English program to sit in our talk. While it seems unlikely that our prospective will have had time to read the novel and join the conversation, let's make her feel welcome! Dinner to follow at The Runcible Spoon.

As always, we'll be meeting on Kirkwood at The Pour House on Wednesday, March 27th from 4:30 - 5:30. We hope to see you there!

Fielding Delayed Until Next Week

We are going to delay meeting to discuss Fielding's Amelia until next week due to all the craziness around the conference. Otherwise, same time & place (see the last blog entry for more details). Thanks & we look forward to seeing you next Wednesday, March 27.

Up Next: Henry Fielding, Amelia

Smith's text generated a number of great ideas yesterday. Some larger themes, definitely circulating in yesterday's talk, appear to be common to many of our discussions: these include embodiment, the limits of the body (or lack thereof), gender, individuality, choice, boundaries, and health. We will continue to trace these ideas and more when we come back from spring break having read Henry Fielding's Amelia.

You can find Fielding's novel on project Gutenberg:

Amelia

Since we've been talking around and through gender, I thought we might supplement this week's readings with an article about the role of women in this novel. Below is a link to an article from Modern Language Review by Earla Wulputte. Having not read this article, I cannot attest to its gravity, but regardless it should provide a point of departure around some of the issues we have been exploring. You can easily link to a pdf of this article through Onesearch, or you can email me (katblake@indiana.edu) for a copy.

Wulputte, Earla. "'Women Buried': Henry Fielding and Feminine Absence." Modern Language Review. 95.2 (2000)

We will resume our meetings after spring break on March 20 from 4:30-5:30 at the Pour-House on Kirkwood. Hope to see you there!