Dickens famously changed the ending of ‘Great Expectations’ at least three times: there’s a happy ending, a downbeat ending and a thoroughly ambiguous one.  Could he just not make up his mind?  Or are the different endings (and it turns out there were rather more than just three) telling us something about the place of the novel in C19th literature?

Professor John Drew explores the humour, themes and endings of this late great novel.

Additional event: Join us for lunch after the lecture, and in the afternoon for a screening of David Lean’s magnificently entertaining 1946 black and white film of the book, starring John Mills and a young Alec Guinness.  More details here, and booking form here.

John Drew, Professor of English Literature and Head of the English Department at the University of Buckingham, researches, writes and lectures on the journalistic work of Dickens and his contemporaries. He was a founder of and now directs the international research project Dickens Journals Online, which is centred around open access digital editions of two mid-century periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round.  He is on the advisory board for the Oxford University Press Clarendon Dickens edition.

In an age when few of us can afford to purchase great works of painting and sculpture, decorative ceramic items can still be affordable and very interesting to collect. The stylistic period known as Art Nouveau, from around 1895-1914, and the subsequent era of Art Deco, between the two World Wars, have left us with a fascinating design heritage in the form of pottery and porcelain vases, decorative plaques and figurines that provide the content of this course. Included is a look at the designers and their ceramic creations from Britain, Europe and the USA, ranging from little known names such as the American Genevieve Hamilton, who produced Art Deco figures, to better known producers such as Sevres, Poole Pottery, Clarice Cliff and Rozenburg, who produced Art Nouveau egg-shell porcelain that seems almost weightless when handled! Liberally illustrated, with numerous images of beautiful ceramics. 

Scott Anderson:
Trained as an archaeologist at Leicester University and was a professional archaeologist for ten years before his interests shifted to the world of art, antiques and auctioneering. In 1994 he joined the team at Southampton Solent University lecturing on the only BA(Hons) degree course of its kind to look at the commercial art world. Now, as a Senior Lecturer, he teaches courses on the history and theory of interior design and visual culture. He has lectured to many adult audiences for a variety of University Extra-mural departments and the WEA. For the last few years he has also worked as a consultant valuer for the BBC television programme Flog It.

Haute Couture is an art form, inseparable from fashion, that achieved some of its finest moments during the years following World War II. During this period, Paris reaffirmed its position as the Capital of Fashion and its reputation for producing the most luxurious and creative clothes money could buy. Three names became synonymous with luxury, glamour and elegance during haute couture’s most exclusive and fertile period – Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Jacques Fath. Undisputed masters of mid 20th century haute couture, Cristóbal Balenciaga was the father of Contemporary fashion, Christian Dior redefined post-war fashion in 1947 with his ‘New Look’ and Jacques Fath, now relatively unknown, was an innovator known for dressing “the chic young Parisienne”.  This lecture explores the life and creative output of three designers during the period widely considered as the zenith of French haute couture.

Scott Schiavone: 

Scott is a Fashion Historian and Curator and an alumnus of both University of Glasgow and London College of Fashion. He has worked with fashion and textile collections across the UK, including Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland and The Harris Museum in Preston where he is currently the Decorative Art Curator. Scott has his own YouTube channel, Fashion &…which now has over 5,500 subscribers. His areas of expertise are nineteenth and twentieth century French, British and American womenswear, luxury fashion accessories and marginalised social histories of fashion.