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IN PERSON

Reading with Jane Austen, by Elaine Bander

Jane Austen has more readers today than at any time in history. Many of Austen’s legions of fans, however, came to her novels after first seeing films or other adaptations made for twenty-first century audiences. Austen herself conversely spent her literary career undermining romantic clichés and rethinking novel conventions. Confident that she and her contemporaries shared a common reading culture, Austen deliberately constructed her novels to set readerly expectations, only to disrupt or confound those expectations by challenging her readers’ assumptions and values. Read more.

March 10, 2026

IN PERSON

Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries (Volume 31), edited by Kevin L. Cope

The contributors to volume 31 join with Enlightenment thinkers in charting the outposts of long eighteenth-century culture while discovering new features in seemingly familiar terrain. Essays explore outlandish but often observed activities such as medical quackery, Rosicrucian hermeticism, and the oral antics associated with the twisted “Malaprop” tradition. Read more

May 12, 2026

IN PERSON

Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction by Erik Larson

This philosophical study of Latin American noir fiction poses the question: what if precarity and uncertainty aren’t just themes of the genre, but ways of being in the world? Emerging from a region immersed in violence, trauma, and political instability, the novela negra reveals not just disillusionment but a desire to adapt to, even dwell within, chaos. Read more

May 12, 2026

IN PERSON

Chateaubriand Across Empires by Fabienne Moore

What happens when the liberty of ancient nobility collides with the revolutionary ideals of equality? This groundbreaking study explores how the American, French, Haitian, and Greek Revolutions redefined freedom—and how French Romantic figure Chateaubriand grappled with that transformation. Tracing his travels across England, North America, and the Mediterranean, this book uncovers Chateaubriand’s seductive visions of “paradises lost,” which were taken up, challenged, and reimagined by Anglophone and Hispanic writers. Read more

June 9, 2026

IN PERSON

Sally Rooney: Perspectives and Approaches, edited by Ellen Scheible and Barry Devine

Bestselling Irish novelist Sally Rooney has emerged as the defining voice of a generation, a cultural phenomenon whose spare, intelligent prose and sharp social insight have reshaped contemporary fiction and sparked a global conversation about intimacy, politics, and the millennial condition.This new collection brings together contributors from a wide range of disciplines to offer fresh critical readings of Rooney’s influential novels, alongside adaptable strategies for teaching her work in today’s undergraduate and graduate classrooms. Read more

June 9, 2026