Reading too many novels causes a great deal of anguish for the naive heroine of Northanger Abbey, and students studying the book could be similarly troubled.
This is according to academics who have issued a trigger warning for Jane Austen’s work because it depicts “gender stereotypes”.
The 1817 novel about a callow young woman’s coming of age in Regency Britain has been deemed potentially upsetting by academics at the University of Greenwich.
Which is the stereotype? The drippy bird who believes what she reads? Good thing not to be these days. Sadly, Jane never did get around to founding the Wilt series, which accurately describe U Greenwich….yes, about the same academic level as Fenlands Tech.
I can see the problem. Northanger Abbey was sold to me as being a Gothic novel.
But she doesnt even paint her fingernails black or listen to Sisters of Mercy or anything.
And as for Jane Austen and the Banshees….
I have to confess it’s my alma mater. I studied for my first accountancy exam there.
In those long ago days it was called Thames Polytechnic. Which gives you a better idea of the status of the “academics”. The only Austen I can think they were familiar with in those days was that luxurious supercar, the Allegro…
” University of Greenwich”. Lol.
Ye Gods! The book is a spoof of gothic novels and girlish fantasies. The Mysteries of Udolpho was chick-lit of its day.
They need to cancel Don Quixote PDQ because it makes fun of mental health and undermines the net-zero narrative by all the tilting at windmills.
To save time, the History department has a blanket trigger warning for their entire library.
Depends what you are studying. Computing related disciplines seem OK
Thank you Otto. I’d never heard of Jane Austen and the Banshees.
I just don’t keep up with stuff lately.
Funnily enuff, I was on the same course as one of the History lecturers at Greenwich. She teaches feminist history and as you can imagine her views are conventionally dull.
XXX’s research interests lie in the study of 19th and 20th century politics, society and culture. She is passionate about questions of gender and how this intersects with class, ethnicity and race…research into 20th century feminisms has focussed on lesser known elements of the British women’s suffrage movement and its impact in different contexts. The collection of essays she edited with A.V. John, The Men’s Share: Masculinities, Male Support and Women’s Suffrage in Britain, 1890-1920 remains one of the go-to books on the subject. In 2017, Claire guest curated one of the Houses of Parliament’s Vote100 exhibitions, ‘Suffragettes in Trousers: the men who supported women’s suffrage in Parliament’.