Exploring Downton Abbey

Scott F. Stoddart is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has written broadly about popular culture, literature and the arts on such topics as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Stephen Sondheim and the Coen brothers. He is also a host of the Sundance television series Love/Lust and a contributing correspondent to the PBS series American Icons.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Introduction

Cast of Characters

The Main House: The Contexts at Downton

“Even Elizabeth Bennet paid to see what Pemberley was like inside”:

The Manor House as Character (Michael Samuel and Scott F. Stoddart)

Revisiting Gosford Park: Downton Abbey, American Audiences

and the British Heritage Genre (Gayle Sherwood Magee)

The Entrance Hall: Understanding History and Downton Abbey

Series Two of Downton Abbey: War! What Are We Good For? (Elizabeth Fitzgerald)

“There’s always something”: Representing Race (Jennifer Poulos Nesbitt)

Downton Abbey, the Jazz Age and Adaptation to Change (Ellen Hernandez)

The Library: The Man’s Domain

“Not family friendly”: Downton Abbey and the Specter of Male

­Same-Sex Kissing (Anthony Guy Patricia)

Wearing the Trousers: “Female” Voices in “Male” Spaces (Joy E. Morrow)

M’Lady’s Chamber: The Women of Downton Abbey

Feminist Tendencies (Jennifer Harrison)

“Damaged” First, Romance Later: The Patterning of Courtship

on Lady Mary Crawley (Rachel L. Carazo)

Lady Sybil Must Die: Class and Gender Constraints (Mary Ruth Marotte)

“We are allies, my dear”: Defining British and American National Identity (Melissa Wehler)

The Servants’ Hall The Downstairs Domestic: Servant Femininity (Courtney Pina Miller)

“Education is for everyone”: Education and the American Dream (Katrin Suhren)

“We’re all in this together!” Big Society Themes(Gill Jamieson)

About the Contributors

Index