We are looking forward to resuming our discussion of great literature this coming fall with two magnificent nineteenth-century novels: Balzac’s La Cousine Bette and Gogol’s Dead Souls. We are planning for four biweekly meetings at our usual meeting time and place, Saturday mornings 9:30-11 at the Christians. The tentative dates are September 15, September 29, October 13, and October 27. Please let us know if these proposed dates work for you!

There is an additional opportunity for TED lovers next fall as well. I will be conducting an informal class at UT entitled “Imperialism in Literature and Film.” In this three-session course we will study three texts pertaining to British imperialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries: Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King,” Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant.” In conjunction with the reading, we will view excerpts from several films either based on one or more of the texts or related to them. The purpose of the course is to explore textual and cinematic representations of imperialism and imperialists in historical context as well as through the lens of the post-colonial age. If you are interested, you can check out the course site at: http://cie.austin.utexas.edu/informalclasses/index.php/Imperialism_in_Literature_and_Film/?num=IC13061.

We hope you have a wonderful summer!