The next Deans’ Seminar in the 2022-23 series will be held this Friday, January 20, 2023. Kyoko Takanashi, Associate Professor of English, will present her research entitled “Scenes of Lifelong Learning in Nineteenth-Century British Literature.”
We will meet at noon in the UCET Classroom (NS245). Feel free to bring your lunch. Soft drinks and water will be provided. If you would like to join by zoom please use this link: https://iu.zoom.us/j/93176192536
Abstract:
“Lifelong learning” is an anachronistic term to apply to the study of nineteenth-century British fiction. Defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a form of or approach to education which promotes the continuation of learning throughout adult life, esp. by making educational material and instruction available through libraries, colleges, or information technology,” the term first started appearing in the 1930s and has become a staple vocabulary in our society. And yet, it is in the nineteenth century that the cultural ethos of lifelong learning emerged. Amidst the forces of industrialization, population increase, and imperial expansion, Britons felt the urgent need to educate workers, make information available to a wider population of readers, train women for professions, produce new knowledge, and engage in self-improvement to keep up with the times. Many contemporary works of fiction not only engaged these issues but also theorized how lifelong learning takes place—or fails to do so—in the complex interaction between technologies, institutions, and individuals. Analyzing scenes of lifelong learning in works by Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among others, this presentation will trace the legacies of lifelong learning, both good and bad, that we inherit from the nineteenth century.