Literary Theory – Steven J. Venturino

Appreciating Form in Books and Movies

Published on June 7, 2021July 27, 2021 by Steven J. Venturino

A Newberry Library Adult Education Seminar

This seminar offers a lively survey of some of the artistic techniques, styles, innovations, and traditions that we encounter everyday. Through literary excerpts, film clips, lectures, and discussion, our sessions will explore the importance, in fiction and film, of a good beginning, the depiction of characters’ thoughts and feelings, the effects of patterns and framing, the reliance on “the same old plots,” and the curious nature of representation.

Six sessions. Thursdays, June 17 to July 22, 2 -4pm CDT, via Zoom.

Introducing Trollope: The Warden

Published on June 7, 2021June 7, 2021 by Steven J. Venturino

A Newberry Adult Education Seminar

Anthony Trollope’s 1855 novel The Warden revolves around an English cleric whose comfortable living is called into question not only by progressive voices in society but by his own conscience. While inaugurating the expansive Barsetshire series, The Warden on its own is a relatively short, intense examination of emotion, moral choice, and the social consequences of individual action. This seminar introduces Trollope’s main concerns as well as his surprisingly timely psychological prose.

Three sessions.