All Program Dates
April 30, 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
May 7, 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
May 14, 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
May 21, 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
Registration
Tuition for this course is $200. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
A welcome email from the instructor three weeks before the course begins. Zoom links will be sent for the course one week before the first meeting.
This program is for those 18 and older.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Friday, March 14, for Rosenbach members on Friday, March 21, and for the general public on Friday, March 28. Registration opens at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Description
In this four-week course, we’ll journey into the pages of Wuthering Heights, the beloved novel written and published by Emily Brontë in 1847. Described by Victorian critics as both “coarse” and “disagreeable,” Brontë’s book plunges readers into a wild world that explores the passionate nature of love and hate in all their destructive manifestations. We’ll examine the work’s formal features: its structure, narrative techniques, and varied points of view. We’ll interrogate Brontë’s protagonist, the divisive Mr. Heathcliff, whose arrival at the Heights not only sets in motion an enduring bond with Catherine but leads to a life of revenge and violence, prompting the question, “Is Heathcliff a murderer?” We will explore the mystery surrounding his origins, the ambiguities in Brontë’s descriptions of his race and ethnic identity, and the evolution of his character throughout the novel. Our conversations will also include the diversity of relationships presented in the book and how details, such as the representation of animals, provide symbolic clues with which to interpret the characters in an unruly Yorkshire world. Finally, we will consider the ending–or many endings–in the novel, both the narrative conclusion and the fate of its numerous characters. In doing so, we will consider whether Charlotte Brontë’s view that her sister’s novel appears a “strange production” still resonates for modern readers.
Instructor
This course is led by Dr Claire O’Callaghan, a Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, U.K. Claire is the author of Emily Brontë Reappraised (2018), a short meta-biography of this beloved Victorian writer published during the bicentenary of her birth. O’Callaghan is also Editor-in-Chief of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society. As an academic, she has published widely on the Brontës, including scholarly writing on Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Emily’s poetry, race and Wuthering Heights (and its afterlives), and Brontë biopics. She has also published articles on the Brontës’ letters and on Emily Brontë’s final months. She is currently collaborating with the Brontë Parsonage Museum on the transcription and publication of Charlotte Brontë’s so-called “Parisian Little Book,” an unpublished piece of Brontë juvenilia written by Charlotte in 1830. She has contributed to television, news media, and podcasts, including “The Brontës: Everything you wanted to know” for BBC History Extra. You can find her on Instagram, TikTok, X, and Bluesky at @drclaireocall.