5. Critical Debates

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about the nature of the critical debate and controversy that has surrounded The Bloody Chamber, focusing in particular on the work of Patricia Duncker, Margaret Atwood, Lucie Armitt, and Merja Makinen.

Course

In this course, Dr Helen Stoddart (University of Glasgow) explores Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, first published in 1979. We begin by thinking about Carter's literary career, focusing in particular on her interest in fairy tales. After that, we consider the first paragraph of 'The Bloody Chamber' and think about how it introduces some of the key themes in the collection as a whole, before moving on in the third and fourth modules to provide close readings of the seventh and third stories in the collection, respectively – 'The Lady in the House of Love' and 'The Tiger's Bride'. In the final module, we think about the nature of the critical debate and controversy that has surrounded The Bloody Chamber since its publication, looking in particular that the work of Patricia Duncker, Margaret Atwood, Lucie Armitt, and Merja Makinen.

Lecturer

Dr Helen Stoddart is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests lie primarily in twentieth- and twenty-first century literature, film and culture, with a particular focus on questions of gender and the body. This has produced a range of publications on subjects such as Federico Fellini, Isak Dinesen, tattoos, Angela Carter, film authorship theory, A.L. Kennedy, ghost stories, Charles Dickens, and Wim Wenders. Her monograph, Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation (2000) is part of an ongoing interest in the history and representation of circus bodies, an interest that is picked up in her next book, the Routledge Guide to Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (2007).