The Public Jane Austen in Austin; or, How to Keep Austen Weird

Presiding: Devoney Looser, Arizona State University, Tempe

Loosner’s introductory remarks included how this session received it’s title: “Keep Austin Weird” is a cherished city slogan here in Austin, and MLA has also wanted to Keep Austen Weird.  Apparently, this idea started when Eve Segwick presented a paper in 1989 about Jane Austen and a masturbating girl.  Whether degenerative to the humanities or not, Jane Austen’s resonance still continues today. 

First Presenter:  Mary Ann O'Farrell, Texas A&M University

"Jane Austen and the 'After 9/11' Question"

Dr. O’Farrell is currently completing a book on Austen’s appearances in contemporary popular culture and political discourse.  She seemed very pleased to receive Jane Austen gifts at this conference, namely a Jane Austen tee shirt and toothpaste.  She began her talk about all the books you can find on Amazon that deal with how life has changed since 9/11.  Austen writes about manners in a small world and O’Farrell did a lot of reading about manners in preparation for this paper.  She discussed the disaster that occurs at Box Hill in Jane Austen’s Emma, and how this scene in which Emma clumsily destroys a balanced world constitutes a disaster, an “after” to “before and after.” Box Hill is a marker of time the way 9/11 is.  Emma spends the “after” trying to make amends, to clean up.  O’Farrell points out, however, that the social disillusion that came to a head at Box Hill actually began the day before at Donwell.  As an answer to how Austen contributes to contemporary culture, O’Farrell says that hypervigilance is a strategy we all use to try to keep the future changes at bay, and what occurs at Box Hill is a rupture that leads to a broadening, the beginning of letting in the broad world.  What follows that day is everydayness. 

 

Second Presenters: Janine G. Barchas, University of Texas, Austin and Kristina Straub, Carnegie Mellon University

"Will and Jane, at Four Hundred and Two Hundred,"

 

Dr. Archas wrote the book Matters of Factin Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity and her most recent project is the “What Jane Saw” website, which digitally reconstructs two Georgian museum exhibitions witnessed by Jane Austen in 1796 and 1813.  Together with Kristina Straub, she is co-curator of an upcoming brick-and-mortar exhibition, entitled “Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen,and the Cult of Celebrity” at the Folger Shakespeare Library in fall 2016 (August to November).  Kristina Straub is the author of Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence BetweenServants and Masters in Eighteenth Century Britain. 

The Exhibit at the Folgers Shakespeare Library in Washington DC will be a show that looks at the various aspects of Shakespeare at 400 years old and Austen at 200.  It will examine biography, literary celebrity, etc.  The authors provided a audio-visual preview of the show.