Melbourne Masterclass: 10 Great Books 2021

Book list and program schedule for 2021

In 2021, we will traverse three millennia with 10 diverse books that will be our window into important critical debates surrounding gender, economics, ageing, revolution, race and so much more.

Click on the titles below for book, presenter and live online Q&A details:

• February: Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, 1895

  This blistering satire of Victorian social hypocrisy, considered Wilde’s greatest theatrical achievement, was playing in London even as Wilde was arrested on charges of gross indecency.

  Presented by Dr Sarah Balkin, Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication. Sarah works across theatre and literary studies, with particular expertise in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century theatre, literature, genre, melodrama and comedy.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 19 February

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEDT Tuesday, 23 February

• March: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952

  In this mid-century masterpiece, a nameless protagonist re-enacts the diaspora of African Americans from South to North in an allegorical novel that is by turns comic and nightmarish.

  Presented by Associate Professor Sana Nakata, Associate Dean, Indigenous in the Faculty of Arts. Trained as a lawyer and political theorist, Sana’s research is centred around developing an approach for thinking politically about childhood in ways that improve the capacity of adult decision-makers to act in their interests.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 19 March

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEDT Tuesday, 23 March

• April: Bernhard Schlink, The Reader, 1995

  Penned by a German law professor and judge, this three-part novel set in post-war Germany follows a relationship between a young man and an older woman as they are both swept up in the unbearable legacy of the Holocaust.

  Presented by Professor Alison Lewis, Professor of German in the School of Languages and Linguistics. Alison has published widely in the areas of Modern German Literature and German Studies, mainly on gender, literature and politics, the German Democratic Republic, German unification and the history of the East German secret police.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 23 April 

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 27 April

• May: Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405

  France’s first professional woman of letters writes a passionate defence of her sex by imagining a city built by and for women – scholars, inventors, and warriors – and thus provides an extraordinary insight into the position of women in medieval culture.

  Presented by Professor Anne Dunlop, Herald Chair of Fine Arts in the School of Culture and Communication. Anne works on Italian and European art in the later Middle Ages and early modern period, including on links between Italy and Asia in the Mongol period.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 21 May

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 25 May

• June: P.D. James, The Children of Men, 1992

  Set in the year 2021, this suspenseful dystopian novel imagines a world in which humankind has become infertile, England is ruled by a despot, and a small band of dissenters may hold the key to the survival of the human race.

  Presented by Professor Margaret Cameron, Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies in the Faculty of Arts. Margaret’s primary areas of research expertise are in the history of philosophy, especially the ancient, medieval and early modern periods.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 18 June

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 22 June

• July: Cicero, On Old Age (Cato Maior de Senectute), 44 BCE

  Cicero, one of the great orators of ancient Rome, defends old age against its apparent disadvantages, arguing that the wisdom one gains with age more than compensates for any loss of vigour.

  Presented by Professor Tim Parkin, who joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Tim's teaching covers both Greek and Roman history and classical languages.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 23 July

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 27 July

• August: Yu Hua, China in Ten Words, 2010

  This essay collection from one of China’s most acclaimed modern writers offers insightful reflections on modern China through 10 words: People, leader, reading, writing, Lu Xun, disparity, revolution, grassroots, copycat, and bamboozle.

  Presented by Professor Anne McLaren, Professor in Chinese Studies in the Asia Institute, whose main research interest is Chinese popular culture from the late imperial to the contemporary period, with a focus on the oral and ritual traditions of Chinese women, Chinese performance arts, and traditional popular fiction.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 20 August

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 24  August

• September: Jessica Anderson, Tirra Lirra by the River, 1978

  This Miles Franklin-winning Australian novel is a moving account of one woman’s remarkable life, as she reflects on a life defined by escapes (first from her marriage, then from Australia) before a return to her childhood home.

  Presented by Anna Funder, the author of Stasiland, which won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize, and the internationally bestselling novel All That I Am, which won the Miles Franklin, among many other prizes. Both books are published in over 25 countries. She is also an alum of the University of Melbourne (BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), MA (Creative Writing)).

  Lecture release date: Friday, 24 September

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEST Tuesday, 28 September

• October: Joan Robinson, Economic Philosophy, 1962

  Overlooked for the Nobel Prize during her lifetime, Joan Robinson's perspective on the evolution of economic thought and its relation to political and moral philosophy was ahead of its time: unfashionable when first published, but tremendously influential in the decades since.

  Presented by Associate Professor Dan Halliday, from the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. Dan’s work focuses on topics in political philosophy, particularly on markets and other aspects of economic justice.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 22 October

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEDT Tuesday, 26 October

• November: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1856

  To mark the bicentenary of Flaubert’s birth, we conclude the series by delving into his scandalous novel Madame Bovary, the beloved story of a young woman driven to dangerous choices by the banality and emptiness of married life in provincial France.

  Presented by Professor Russell Goulbourne, series host and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. A noted French literature scholar, Russell has published and taught extensively on major figures in French intellectual culture of the 17th and 18th centuries including Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. His research interests include the history of the book and textual editing, and reception of classical antiquity in early modern France.

  Lecture release date: Friday, 19 November

  Live Q&A date: 6.30pm-7.15pm AEDT Tuesday, 23 November