ONLINE SEMINAR
November 13 | Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy

Description

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LEADER

Dr. Wendy O’Brien is a philosopher with over 30 years’ experience teaching in academic and non-academic environments, including Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Waterloo, Harvard, Oxford and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her work explores subjects including power, violence, the relation to the Other, home, silence, and creativity. She is presently working on a long-term project on the concept of wonder. An active member of the Ontario literary scene, she has been an interviewer for organizations including By the Lake Book Club, the Toronto International Festival of Authors and GritLit, as well as hosting Bourbon and Books book club in both Toronto and Hamilton.

BOOKS

Regeneration, by Pat Barker
(Penguin, 2008)
ISBN-13 : 978-0141030937

The Eye in the Door, by Pat Barker
(Penguin UK, 2008)
ISBN-13 : 978-0141030944

The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker
(Penguin UK, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-0141030951

These editions are recommended but are not required.

We encourage you to support local bookstores or other independent sellers, especially as alternatives to Amazon.

In the US and the UK, try Bookshop.org, World of Books, or Ebooks (electronic books only)

In the US and Canada, try Powell’s Books, IndieBound, and Thiftbooks (used books only in Canada)

In Canada, try McNally Robinson

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“The truth is, my major theme … is recovery.” — Pat Barker

This is an intriguing description of the work of the novel as an art form, and an interesting summation of the writings of Pat Barker, particularly her Regeneration trilogy. Taking us from the summer of 1917 to the final months of the Great War, the three books in this series — Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road — re-create events from the lives of anthropologist and psychologist W. H. R. Rivers, writer Robert Graves, and poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Tying their stories together is that of fictional character Billy Prior who, like Owen and Sassoon, is under the care of Rivers. What results is a masterful exploration of the experience and treatment of what was at the time called shell shock, and of the soldiers’ attempt to repair lives shattered by all they had seen and done — or not done.

Across these novels, Barker ventures into the many and varied ways in which war divides us without — by nation and location, by those on the front and those who remain behind, by class, sex, gender and education — and within. Central to understanding these divisions are questions about the nature of recovery. How can a world, a nation, be reconciled in war’s aftermath? How can an individual be reconciled with/to himself? What does it mean to recover, and to what extent is it possible? Take up these questions with us in a close reading of Pat Barker’s unforgettable Regeneration trilogy.

All online seminar payments are nonrefundable. All discount codes must be used at the time of purchase; no retroactive discounts will be issued.

All seminars are subject to minimum enrollment of 7 participants. Click the link for full terms and conditions for Classical Pursuits online seminars.

Classical Pursuits does not record seminars. By participating in any seminar, registrants agree not to make their own seminar recordings and to abide by the Classical Pursuits code of conduct.

Image credit: “Soldier Firing,” by George Harding. U.S. Army Art Collection

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