Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Today’s Medium Cool is the beginning of a series on Agatha Christie & Dorothy Sayers, hosted by our very own SiubhanDuinne.
The first photo of Dorothy L. Sayers (DLS) as a young woman, perhaps in her early 20s? She was born in 1893, so that would make it a WWI-era photo, perhaps taken when she was one of the early female students at Oxford (Somerville College).
The second photo is Agatha Christie (AC), taken around 1925. She was born in 1890, so that would make her about 35 when it was taken.
I’ll let Subaru Diane share the details, so I’ll just say that she is getting ready to teach a course on these talented female writers for an OLLI program, and she graciously agreed share some of her materials out on us. I figure we’ll be part guinea pigs – in the best possible way – and part inspiration for her class.
So if this is of interest to you, mark your calendars – 6 sessions, including tonight: 2/26, 3/12, 3/26, 4/9, 4/23, and 5/7.
Tonight will be a general discussion of the authors and their books, against the backdrop of a rapidly-changing Britain.
And with that, I’ll turn it over to our beloved Mob Enforcer.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m preparing a course which I hope to teach fairly soon (via Zoom) through Emory University’s OLLI program (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).
So far, I haven’t come up with a catchy title for the class — suggestions welcome!! — but the subject is SOCIAL CHANGE IN 20TH-CENTURY ENGLAND AS REFLECTED IN THE DETECTIVE FICTION OF AGATHA CHRISTIE (1890-1976) AND DOROTHY L. SAYERS (1893-1957).
As we’ve seen, there are a number of classic mystery fans here among the Medium Cool Jackaltariat.
Water Girl kindly suggested that, over a series of Sunday-evening posts, two or three weeks apart, I could share some of my plans for the OLLI course with you. I hope the idea generates a few lively discussions on these two extraordinary authors and the dizzying times they lived in and chronicled in their fiction. (Narrator: Subaru Dianne is going to shamelessly pick your brains for insights and felicitous phrasing.)
There’s bound to be some overlap among them, but I’d like to explore the following themes that crop up again and again in Sayers’ and Christie’s works — one Medium Cool at a time:
- General discussion of the authors and their books, against the backdrop of a rapidly-changing Britain (tonight)
- The Lingering and Pervasive Impact of World War One
- The Changing Role of Women
- Profound Shifts in England’s Entrenched Class System
- Technology, Commerce, and Hedonism
- Empire, Immigrants, Foreigners, Racism
Sayers and Christie began their careers over a century ago, so let’s not worry about plot spoilers in these threads!
Medium Cool – Agatha Christie & Dorothy SayersPost + Comments (203)