Approaches to Teaching Sand's Indiana

Indiana, George Sand's first solo novel, opens with the eponymous heroine brooding and bored in her husband's French countryside estate, far from her native Île Bourbon (now Réunion). Written in 1832, the novel appeared during a period of French history marked by revolution and regime change, civil unrest and labor concerns, and slave revolts and the abolitionist movement, when women faced rigid social constraints and had limited rights within the institution of marriage. With this politically charged history serving as a backdrop for the novel, Sand brings together Romanticism, realism, and the idealism that would characterize her work, presenting what was deemed by her contemporaries a faithful and candid representation of nineteenth-century France.

This volume gathers pedagogical essays that will enhance the teaching of Indiana and contribute to students' understanding and appreciation of the novel. The first part gives an overview of editions and translations of the novel and recommends useful background readings. Contributors to the second part present various approaches to the novel, focusing on four themes: modes of literary narration, gender and feminism, slavery and colonialism, and historical and political upheaval. Each essay offers a fresh perspective on Indiana, suited not only to courses on French Romanticism and realism but also to interdisciplinary discussions of French colonial history or law.

David A. Powell is professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Hofstra University. He is the author of While the Music Lasts: The Representation of Music in the Works of George Sand and has published critical editions of Jacques and Indiana. His articles on Sand have appeared in Études littéraires, Romantic Review, and George Sand Studies; he has also published chapters in George Sand: Intertextualité et polyphonie, George Sand: Une écriture expérimentale, George Sand: Pratiques et imaginaires de l'écriture, Novel Stages, George Sand: Écritures et représentations, Présences de l'Italie dans l'œuvre de George Sand, and L'empire des signes. He has also published on nineteenth-century French literature, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Québécois literature, representations of music in literature, and queer theory, as well as on musical resonances in Verlaine's and Mallarmé's poetry. His current project is on queer narrative strategies in early-nineteenth-century novels. Pratima Prasad is associate professor of French at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the author of Colonialism, Race, and the French Romantic Imagination and the editor, with Susan McCready, of Novel Stages: Drama and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France. Selected articles and essays include "Intimate Strangers: Interracial Encounters in Romantic Narratives of Slavery" (in L'Esprit Créateur); "L'insularité, 'l'indigénisme' et l'inceste dans Paul et Virginie" (in L'autre en mémoire [ed. Laporte]); "Contesting Realism: Mimesis and Performance in George Sand's Novels" (in XIX: Journal of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes); "Espace colonial et vérité historique dans Indiana" (in Etudes littéraires); "Uncovering Narrative Convention in Sand's Lélia" (in George Sand Studies); "Displaced Performances: The Erotics of George Sand's Theatrical Space" (in Romance Notes); and "Deceiving Disclosures: Androgyny and George Sand's Gabriel" (in French Forum).