Newberry Adult Education Seminars will meet both virtually and in the building for the Winter/Spring term. Although we are still primarily virtual, you will find a smaller selection of in-person seminars in the schedule. For more information about the Newberry’s virtual seminars, including a Zoom tutorial, please see our Virtual Seminars FAQ page. If you have questions about online learning, please reach out to adulteducation@newberry.org. Registration opens Wednesday, January 19th at 9am (Central time). Registration will take place through our online platform, Learning Stream.

Register via Learning Stream here

Seminar Description

The poet T.S. Eliot called The Moonstone “the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels.” In this seminar we will examine its importance as a supreme nineteenth-century mystery novel and as an example of popular Victorian fiction which reflects and engages with anxieties and issues of its times, such as the British Empire, Orientalism, philanthropy, the division of the classes, and the role of women. We will also discuss the novel’s unusual structure and polyphonic narration, which makes it such a memorable read.

Three sessions. Registration – $125/$112.5

Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch is the Assistant Director of the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern University, where she also teaches literature classes.

Materials List

Required:

• Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone(Penguin Classics, 1999) ISBN-13: 978-0140434088

First Reading:

• For first class meeting please read Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)—Prologue and First Period: The Loss of the Diamond (about 200 pp.)