For our last Page Breaks of 2023 we are talking about gossip! We will focus on the many iterations, meanings, and implications of gossip, including (but not limited to): the characterisation of gossip as feminine, gossip as idle chatter or a real subversion of power structures, scandal, solidarity, storytelling, folklore, dilemmas, expression, and gossip splitting high and low culture.
Reading an excerpt from Henry James’s novella In the Cage will help us to see how gossip works within power structures, new technologies, and the workplace, while Maria Tatar’s essay reflects upon the role of gender and gossip. If you want more gossip(!), you can listen to an episode about a suburban knitting group from Normal Gossip, a podcast that retells the anonymous gossip sent in to the show.
See you all there!
When and Where
1pm, Monday 4th December, Arts 250 (Fage Room)
The room is on the second floor of the Arts building
Text(s)
You can access a PDF of this week’s texts on our password-protected page – email Dorothy (d.butchard@bham.ac.uk) for the password.