From Taylor Swift to J.R.R. Tolkien, UTA has had several classes take pop culture phenomena and transform them into a learning experience.
A new addition to UTA’s history department classes, World of the Bridgertons, will debut during the fall semester. The “Bridgerton”-focused course will be taught by history department professor Ann Hawkins.
The class will start with the version of Regency England that’s portrayed in the romance novels and Netflix show “Bridgerton,” asking why that vision resonates with 21st-century readers and viewers, Hawkins said.
As a scholar of the period and an author of historical romances, Hawkins said this era of history is firmly in her wheelhouse. The class will answer why audiences are still consuming media set in the era.
“Because of the ‘Bridgerton’ connection, because of who reads these books, why are they interesting? Why is it a popular Netflix series?” she said. “It also lets us reflect on how this period is like us and unlike us. If it’s in the ways that it’s unlike us, what makes it still interesting?”
The course will focus on areas like art, fashion, botany and music during the Regency period.
The Regency era was a period of revolution approximately between 1795 and 1837 that encompassed the American Revolution, French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and Greek Revolution, Hawkins said.
The class will have a mix of lectures and reading discussions. As many UTA students are nontraditional ones, Hawkins’ goal is to create a course where they have the flexibility to do projects on or off campus.
“I’m also open to students coming to the class and saying, ‘OK, you’re doing 15 fun topics, but the thing I’m interested in is not here.’ And it’s like, OK, do a project on it,” she said. “It’s going to be a little bit flexible because it’s such a rich period, and this is a course that in no way can it do justice to it.”
Although the class is technically an upper-level history elective, anyone can join because there are no prerequisites.
“The class is going to bring them together, a lot of different perspectives,” Hawkins said. “History is inherently interdisciplinary.”
She said the class will use the series as a launching point to look at the culture of the period.
“I am very aware that there are students who want to take a course in Regency England who have absolutely no interest in ‘Bridgerton,’ and this will be a course where they will feel comfortable,” she said. “It will also be a course where the ‘Bridgerton’ people feel comfortable.”
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