Austen Chat

• A Close Look at Austen’s Genius: A Visit with John Mullan

  Happy 2025! This year marks Jane Austen's 250th birthday, and we are delighted to kick off the celebration with professor and author John Mullan as our guest. This month we delve into passages from the four novels published during Austen's lifetime and discuss what the details reveal about her genius as a writer. Join us for this fascinating and insightful episode (and get a sneak peek at one of our plenary speakers for JASNA's 2025 AGM in Baltimore)! John Mullan is Lord Northcliffe Chair of Modern English Literature at University College London. Specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth century literature, he is a frequent guest on radio and TV and lectures widely. He also writes on contemporary fiction for the Guardian and was a judge for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. John is the author of The Artful Dickens, What Matters in Jane Austen?, Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature, and How Novels Work and has edited the Oxford World Classics editions of Sense and Sensibility and Emma as well as a number of works by Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets. For a transcript and show notes, visit https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep19.Visit our website: www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookSubscribe to the podcast on our YouTube channelEmail: [email protected]

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• Adapting Austen: A Visit with Andrew Davies

  In this episode we chat with the man who gave us the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice—for many, the definitive Austen adaptation. A prolific author and screenwriter, Andrew Davies is also responsible for the 1996 ITV adaptation of Emma, Northanger Abbey (2007), Sense and Sensibility (2008), and the recent dramatization of Sanditon—not to mention adaptations of a host of other classic novels. Join us as we discuss Andrew's thoughts on adapting Austen's novels to film and, of course, Mr. Darcy in a wet shirt. Andrew Davies, prominent author and screenwriter, began his career writing radio plays and eventually moved into writing for television, film, and theater. He is also the author of several novels and children’s books. In addition to the screen adaptations of Austen's novels mentioned above, he has dramatized television series such as Bleak House, House of Cards (ITV), Mr. Selfridge, Little Dorrit, To Serve Them All My Days, Vanity Fair, and War & Peace, in addition to films such as Bridget Jones's Diary, and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Andrew's work has garnered dozens of nominations and awards, and in 2002, he received the highest honor bestowed by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, a BAFTA Fellowship, in recognition of his “outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image.” For a transcript and show notes, visit https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep18.Visit our website: www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookSubscribe to the podcast on our YouTube channelEmail: [email protected]

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• Jane Austen & Lord Byron: A Visit with Christine Kenyon Jones

  Lord Byron is one of the most notorious bad boys of English literature. He had countless affairs, drank wine from a cup fashioned from a human skull, kept a pet bear at Cambridge, and fought for Greek independence against the Ottoman Empire.  What could this Regency-era demigod of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” possibly have to do with spinster Jane, a country parson's daughter? More than you'd think, according to our guest, Christine Kenyon Jones. In this episode we discuss the parallels between Austen and Byron, Austen's references to Byron in her novels and letters, and how each may have influenced the other's work.Dr. Christine Kenyon Jones is a Research Fellow at King's College London, focusing on the Romantic and Regency periods. Her books include Jane Austen and Lord Byron: Regency Relations (2024) and Dangerous to Show: Lord Byron and His Portraits (2020). She has also authored several essays published in Persuasions and Persuasions On-line.For a transcript and show notes, visit https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep17.Visit our website: www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookSubscribe to the podcast on our YouTube channelEmail: [email protected]

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• Austen in Translation: A Visit with Keiko Parker and Maria Biajoli

  Thanks to the tireless work of translators, readers around the world can enjoy Jane Austen's works in their native languages. But how does one even begin to translate her carefully crafted sentences? What unforeseen challenges and valuable insights arise in the process? In this episode, we ask Austen translators Keiko Parker and Maria Biajoli about their experiences—the good, the bad, and the je ne sais quoi. Keiko Parker has been a JASNA member since 1981 and coordinated the 2007 Annual General Meeting in Vancouver. She has translated five Austen novels into Japanese—Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility—and is currently working on Northanger Abbey. She has also been a breakout speaker at several AGMs and has published papers in Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line. Maria Biajoli is a professor of English at Federal University of Alfenas, Brazil, where she teaches English language and English literature, focusing on women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has presented at a number of JASNA's AGMs, including in 2023 in Denver, where she talked about translating Pride and Prejudice into Brazilian Portuguese. She has published papers about Austen in Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and other academic journals.For a transcript and show notes, visit https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep16.Visit our website: www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookSubscribe to the podcast on our YouTube channelEmail: [email protected]

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• Cassandra Austen & Her Drawings: A Visit with Janine Barchas

  Cassandra Austen, beloved sister to Jane, was a talented artist in her own right. At age 19, she illustrated Jane's satirical History of England with thirteen delightful ink-and-watercolor portraits. She continued to draw and paint throughout her life, most often copying from popular newspaper and magazine prints of the day. In this episode, Austen scholar Janine Barchas discusses her recent discovery of previously unidentified works by Cassandra and the underappreciated "art of copying," a talent Jane Austen gave her heroine Elinor Dashwood. Excitingly, there may still be pieces of Cassandra’s work out there, waiting to be discovered by you, the listener! Images of Cassandra's drawings discussed in this episode are included in the transcript on our website:  https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep15. A video version of this episode is also available on our YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/AzPfNIDt-6UVisit our website:  www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookEmail: [email protected]

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