My name is Jolette Roodt and I am currently an MA student at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. My research interests are Victorian literature and the scholarship of teaching and learning, and I am combining the two in my MA thesis, which will look at interventions in the teaching of Jane Eyre (a component of the first-year English Studies course here) in 21st-century South Africa. As part of my research project I have started a (voluntary) reading group for first-year students interested in the Victorian era. I have also started a Victorian-interest blog as an accompaniment to this reading group, although the group is free for all to read or comment on. While both the group and the blog are still in their early days, I hope that the blog wil eventually become an integral part of the reading group. Group meetings are only 50 minutes in length, and I am hoping to encourage students to continue our discussions after the actual meetings, through comments on the blog.
At the moment, the blog provides links to Victorian-related websites, while the posts focus on new books about the period. I try to include multimedia such as video clips, images and links (especially to Project Gutenberg’s e-books) wherever possible. The blog can be accessed here http://sutocsblog.blogspot.co.uk/. The blog is also on Twitter @SUtocs.