PUBLIC LECTURE: JULES VERNE, NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCHMAN

In association with Australian Society of French Studies Annual Conference Professor Tim Unwin, Professor of French Language and Literature at the University of Bristol

In the hundred years since his death on 24 March 1905, Jules Verne has become an international icon of travel, the future, technology and progress. Often hailed as the inventor of science fiction, Verne has been an inspiration not only to astronauts, inventors and explorers, but also to writers and film-makers. However, Verne's work is often misrepresented, misquoted and misunderstood. It has been subjected to massive distortions, or to adaptations that bear little resemblance to the original. While acknowledging the importance of Jules Verne's wider cultural impact, this lecture will seek above all to place him back in context as a nineteenth-century Frenchman whose mission was to make science acceptable in a fictional context. It will point out that, while a small number of Verne's novels are set in the future, most of the stories take place in his own time, and indeed that they celebrate those nineteenth-century achievements which the novelist read about in encyclopaedias, manuals and the popular press. In conclusion, it will be stressed that Jules Verne's lasting legacy lies not in his so-called 'futurism', but in his radically new approach to the writing of novels.

Professor Tim Unwin, FRSA, Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes academiques, is Professor of French Language and Literature at the University of Bristol (UK). He previously taught at the University of Liverpool (UK) and The University of Western Australia. He has published widely on nineteenth-century French literature, and his most recent book was The Cambridge Companion to Flaubert (Cambridge University Press, 2004). A forthcoming book, Jules Verne: Journeys in Writing, is to be published later in 2005 by Liverpool University Press. During the run-up to the Jules Verne centenary celebrations in 2005, Professor Unwin has made a number of appearances on BBC radio and television.

Thu 7.30-9pm Jul 7 Course Code 054001 $27 Booking essential on 6488 2433 or www.extension.uwa.edu.au