The Modernist ‘Day Novel’
13 March 2027
10:00am-5:00pm
Rewley House 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA
Event status:
Applications being accepted
Dates:
13 March 2027
Study Format:
In-person day/weekend
Fees:
£90.00
In-person lecture-style day event
This lively and engaging one-day course, The Modernist ‘Day Novel’, looks at three modernist novels set over the course of a day: Untouchable by M. R. Anand (1935), Ulysses by James Joyce (1922), and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925). Although written within the space of 15 years, and although each are set over the course of just one day, these three ambitious and challenging works look to Dublin, London and India, and consider issues such as class, war, and gender. Three talks on these novels will be followed by a Q&A where the concept of the ‘day novel’ will be interrogated in more detail. We will also consider the enduring appeal of the ‘day novel’ format. Additionally, students will be introduced to other modern and contemporary novels that follow a similar structural approach. The balance between the canonical and the non-canonical, the well-known and the lesser known, should lead to some interesting discussions and reflections.
Please note: this event will close to enrolments at 23:59 GMT on 10 March 2027.
Book this course
Book your place online using the button below.
Contact the team
Phone: +44 (0)1865 270368
Email: events@conted.ox.ac.uk
Programme details
9.45am
Registration at Rewley House reception
10am
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Dr. Mariachiara Leteo
11.15am
Tea/coffee break
11.45am
M. R. Anand, Untouchable (1935)
Dr. Ben Grant
1pm
Lunch break
2pm
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
Dr. Angus McFadzean
3.15pm
Tea/coffee break
3.45pm
Q&A (with all the speakers, chaired by Prof. Stubbs): What is a ‘day novel’,
and what explains its enduring appeal?
5pm
End of day
Recommended reading
N.B. There is no requirement to have read these primary texts before the Day School, but some knowledge of them would be helpful. All are readily available to purchase in paperback (and on Kindle). Penguin Classics, Vintage, and Oxford World’s Classics editions are always reliable.
1. M. R. Anand, Untouchable (1935)
2. James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
3. Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)
Accommodation
If you wish to stay with us before and/or after the event, please contact our Residential Centre for availability and discounted rates.
Call +44 (0) 1865 270362 or email res-ctr@conted.ox.ac.uk
Our accommodation in Wellington Square has been rated as 4-Star Campus Accommodation under Visit England. All bedrooms are modern, comfortably furnished with tea/coffee making facilities, Freeview television, private bath/shower rooms and free WiFi. For more details see our accommodation information.
Dr Ben Grant
Dr Ben Grant is a Lecturer in English Literature in the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford. He has a research background in postcolonial studies and cultural translation. His first book, Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis and Burton: Power Play of Empire (2009), was about the iconic Victorian explorer and translator, Richard Francis Burton, who began his career as a spy in British India. Ben is also interested in all forms of brevity in literature, and his second book, The Aphorism and Other Short Forms (2016), aims to give a consolidated picture of the exciting and often marginalised genres of the aphorism and related short forms, such as the proverb and the fragment. Ben is currently working on life writing and autobiographical fiction, particularly in the work of Jenny Diski.
Dr Mariachiara Leteo
Mariachiara is Departmental Tutor at Oxford Lifelong Learning, where she teaches Virginia Woolf and other modern women writers. She has completed her DPhil in English at Oxford on Virginia Woolf’s theory of poetry and the poetic qualities of her novels, set in dialogue with the ideas and work of an Italian modernist author. Her first monograph, Poetic Effects in the Prose of Virginia Woolf and Emilio Cecchi, is forthcoming, and she regularly writes about literature on her website.
Dr Angus McFadzean
Dr Angus McFadzean is the Programme Director of the Oxford University Summer School for Adults and teaches on international programmes at the Department for Continuing Education, specialising in British and American Literature and Film. He is the author of Suburban Fantastic Cinema: Growing Up in the Late Twentieth Century (Columbia University Press, 2019) and the co-editor of James Joyce’s Epiphanies: A Critical Edition, forthcoming from University Press of Florida (2024). He has published on James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon and Hollywood cinema and has taught widely on literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, specifically modernism and the works of Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf and WB Yeats.
Prof Tara Stubbs – Chair
Professor Tara Stubbs is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at OUDCE, and a Fellow of Kellogg College Oxford. For 2017–2020 she was the Academic Programme Director of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford. Her first book was American Literature and Irish Culture, 1910–1955 (2013), which was re-issued in paperback in 2017. Her interests include American and Irish literature, modernism and poetry, and she has published widely in these fields. In 2017 she co-edited the essay collection Navigating the Transnational in Modern American Literature and Culture (2017), and her second monograph, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020, was The Modern Irish Sonnet: Revision and Rebellion.
Fees
| Description | Costs |
|---|---|
| Event fee (includes tea/coffee) | £90.00 |
| Baguette lunch | £7.90 |
| Hot lunch | £22.40 |
Payment
Please see the terms and conditions for our open-access courses.
Funding
If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, or are a care-leaver in the UK, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:
Module code: O26P119LTJ
Please use the ‘Book’ button on this page. Alternatively, please contact us to obtain an application form.
