Authors, Books, & Writing Programs

Learn how Jane Austen’s novels provide a window into life in Regency England, creating a world of country retreats, London townhouses, balls, fashionable finery, and romantic (if sometimes-rocky) courtships. But the realities of war, poverty, and society’s ills rumble through the novels, threatening to disrupt family reputations and elegantly lived lives during that era.

How do professional historians work? In a unique workshop, Christopher Hamner, an associate professor of American history at George Mason University, demystifies this process by guiding you in how to think about and interpret the past.

The American Southwest occupies a central place in the country’s literary imagination. Join Lisbeth Strimple Fuisz, a lecturer in the English department at Georgetown University, in spirited lectures and informal discussions about four compelling novels that offer rich and varied portraits of the region and the people who inhabit it. This session discusses Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.

Homer, the Bible, and the New Testament, are among the ancient texts that provide us knowledge of the ancient world. Explore the stories behind these and other sources, which still retain their narrative power into the 21st century.

In 1085, the king of England, William the Conqueror, ordered an inquest be made in every shire, in order to record the totality of resources of the realm. Explore how and why this document, the Domesday Book, came to be and what it reveals about the governance, society, and economy of late 11th-century England with medieval historian Richard Abels.

The American Southwest occupies a central place in the country’s literary imagination. Join Lisbeth Strimple Fuisz, a lecturer in the English department at Georgetown University, in spirited lectures and informal discussions about four compelling novels that offer rich and varied portraits of the region and the people who inhabit it. This session discusses Bless Me, Ultima by Rodolfo Anaya.

Join Mary Hall Surface, instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for a close look at Joan Miró’s The Farm to discover how memory informs the painting and can inspire your own reflective writing.

The American Southwest occupies a central place in the country’s literary imagination. Join Lisbeth Strimple Fuisz, a lecturer in the English department at Georgetown University, in spirited lectures and informal discussions about four compelling novels that offer rich and varied portraits of the region and the people who inhabit it. This session discusses Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.

The American Southwest occupies a central place in the country’s literary imagination. Join Lisbeth Strimple Fuisz, a lecturer in the English department at Georgetown University, in spirited lectures and informal discussions about four compelling novels that offer rich and varied portraits of the region and the people who inhabit it. This session discusses All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.