About the trip

Participants will visit stately homes, landscapes, and cathedrals in the English midlands, Yorkshire, and the border of Wales to see the places and spaces that have inspired writers, artists, and congregants for centuries. From Chatsworth to the Brontё Parsonage Museum, we will visit sites depicted in the novels of Jane Austen and the village home where the Bronte sisters wrote and set their works, and we’ll see places important to writers such as Lord Tennyson and Agatha Christie. Stops in Lincoln, York, and Chester offer guided tours of cathedrals and ruins where pilgrims have sought spiritual succor for centuries. Throughout the journey, English landscapes reveal the spirit of place that has urged poets and philosophers to explore the relationship of the human mind to Nature’s presence. The readings, lectures, and discussions will explore the historic significance and cultural influence of these places and their effects on the human imagination. 

 

 

Program Leaders
 
Dr. Meg Cronin   Dr. Steve Reno
Dr. Meoghan Cronin specializes in nineteenth-century British literature, particularly on narrative and the novel. Her published work includes articles and chapters on the novels of Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Brontë, as well as on fiction by novelists Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Augusta Ward and, in the twentieth century, Antonia White. Dr. Cronin's scholarship examines the influences of religion and other forms of belief on young woman in fixtion and explores, specifically, the question of what it means to be a "good" girl. Dr. Cronin is also a member of the Dickens Society and has contributed presentations and book reviews to their conferences and Dickens Quarterly for many years.

 

  
Dr. Steve Reno's academic interests are in the areas of comparative symbolism, mythology, and ritual, and has been involved with the Salzburg Global Seminar, a non-profit organization that convenes programs on health care, education, culture, and more. Steve recently retired as Executive Director of Leadership, NH, a job he held (and loved) for 14 years. Before, he was Chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, which is comprised of the University of New Hampshire, Keene State College, Plymouth State University, and Granite State College.
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