#VirtualJaneCon 2023

July 15-16, 2023

A note on time: All listed times are in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Convert to your time zone here.

Links below will default to the presenter’s channel, so you might have to scroll to their uploads at the time of programming.

Saturday, July 15, 2023

12:00 am UTC – Something to fear in every person and place’: Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, trauma and race – Sharmini Kumar (read more)

1:00 pm UTC – Mr. Darcy’s White Shirt: A Deep Dive – Elizabeth Gilliland Rands (read more)

2:00 pm UTC – Sister Sister: How Jane and Cassandra’s Relationship Influenced the Sister Trope in Jane’s Writing – Ayana of The Vintage Guidebook and Tiffany Gayle of Stitchin’ Addiction (read more)

3:00 pm UTC – Spilling the Jam: Controversial Opinions on Netflix’s Persuasion (2022) – Kate Zarrella (read more)

3:00 pm UTC – How to Lose a Guy for 8 Years: Adapting Persuasion into a Modern Rom Com Series – Ayelen Barrios Ruiz Pagano, Anya Steiner, Hazel Jeffs, and Jessamyn Leigh (read more)

4:00 pm UTC – “His beautiful grounds at Pemberley” – Show me your estate and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are – Marie – Linguipixie (read more)

5:00 pm UTC – The Ceaseless Clink of Pattens – Stepping into 18th-19th Century Material Culture – Sarah Walsh (read more)

5:00 pm UTC – Dissecting the New Wave of Jane Austen Adaptations (and what the future holds) – Jillian Davis and Yolanda Rodriguez of The Pemberley Podcast (read more)

6:00 pm UTC – What Jane read: A look at two of Austen’s favourite novels – Jessica Bull, Felicity George (read more)

6:00 pm UTC – A Janeite’s Intro to the Gothic – Linsy Hunsaker (read more)

7:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen and Historical Comics – Courtney Birnbaum (read more)

7:00 pm UTC – Play Time with Jane: A Child-Friendly Look at Games and Toys in the 1700s – Maddie Cole (read more)

8:00 pm UTC – The missing adaptations: A history of the “never-ever made” Austen movies and series – Carmen Romero-Sánchez (read more)

8:00 pm UTC – The History of English Country Dance – By a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian – Cassiane Mobley (read more)

9:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen’s Persuasion Song Cycle – Emily King, PasticheNYC (read more)

9:00 pm UTC – Be Not Alarmed, Austen Characters: We Have Notes! – Andrea Schwartz, Kim Kalish (read more)

10:00 pm UTC – A Case for Tilney: A Deeper Look into Northanger Abbey – Briana Michelle Meyer (read more)

Sunday, July 16, 2023

10:00 am UTC – Was Jane Austen Classist? – The Case of Emma – Charlie (read more)

4:00 pm UTC – Justice For Vanity Fair 2018 – Amanda-Rae Prescott (read more)

5:00 pm UTC – How Dare You Change Jane??? – Rachel Amber Bloom (read more)

7:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen: Queen of Comedy – Rhonda Watts & Erin O’Loughlin (Pop DNA Podcast) (read more)

8:00 pm UTC – A Court of Fey And Flowers: the Austen Adaptation We Needed – Emily Friedman, Emily Kugler, Sylvan Baker, Austin Anderson, Eliza Alexander Wilcox (read more)

9:00 PM UTC – The Timeless, Transformative, and Turbulent Romance of Elizabeth Bennet & Mr. Darcy: Exploring Austen’s Most Beloved Couple Through the Lens of Taylor Swift’s Music – Tiffany Cruz (read more)

Saturday, July 15, 2023

12:00 am UTC – Something to fear in every person and place’: Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, trauma and race – Sharmini Kumar

Explore the things that made Fanny Price the kind of person she is, how her trauma informs her choices, and how race and colonialism impact her. We will also explore hypothetical questions, including – what if she were biracial?

Sharmini (she/her) has written, directed, and produced many performance pieces and short films, and is the founder and Artistic Director of 24 Carrot Productions. Sharmini loves Austen’s humour and wit, and particularly likes to explore issues that are not often highlighted in adaptations of Austen’s work. Find her @sharminime (Twitter) and @24carrotproductions (Instagram).

1:00 pm UTC – Mr. Darcy’s White Shirt: A Deep Dive – Elizabeth Gilliland Rands

The infamous scene from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice in which Mr. Darcy dives into the lake at Pemberley does not appear anywhere in the original novel. Because of this, many critics often dismiss this scene as a moment of wish-fulfillment/entertaining fanfiction. However, this presentation will “dive” (pun intended) into the significance of this scene as an adaptation of some of the core themes of Austen’s original novel, as well as an integral influence for other Austen adaptations and period dramas that have followed.

Elizabeth Gilliland Rands (she/her) is a writer, Dr., teacher, mother, wife, and fan of all things Jane Austen. She wrote her dissertation in 2018 on Jane Austen adaptations and she has since presented at conferences such as VirtualJaneCon and JASNA. She has a reputation with her students for a) loving Jane Austen and b) getting easily thrown off-track by talking about Mr. Darcy. Her novels include What Happened on Box Hill and The Portraits of Pemberley, two books from the Austen University Mysteries series. She can be reached at @egilliland7 (Twitter) and @egilliland_writer (TikTok).

Jane and Elizabeth. Elinor and Marianne. These well-known sister pairs in Austen’s works share supportive sibling relationships that are often envied by readers. Many of Austen’s main characters have a sister-like relationship, even if they are not related by blood. In this video, Ayana and Tiffany explore how this trope mirrors the harmonious and caring relationship that Jane enjoyed with her sister Cassandra.

Ayana (she/her) is a writer and social history enthusiast with a focus on historical fashion. While most of her interest centers around the 20th century, as a longtime Janeite, she especially enjoys studying clothing from the Regency period.
You can find Ayana everywhere on social media as @thevintageguidebook

Tiffany (she/her) is the owner/operator of Stitchin’ Addiction, a small business that designs, makes, and sells 19th century women’s clothing that is inspired by literary heroines. With over 30 years of sewing experience, experience as an English teacher, and meticulous attention to historical fashion construction and style, each ensemble is the result of thorough research of a character’s class, characterization of the heroine, and reference to period fashion plates and photos of extant dresses. Tiffany can be found as Stitchin’ Addiction on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, and her website.

3:00 pm UTC – Spilling the Jam: Controversial Opinions on Netflix’s Persuasion (2022) – Kate Zarrella

Love it or hate it, there’s a lot to unpack about Netflix’s 2022 adaptation of Persuasion. This video will cover the controversial costumes, the characterization choices, the visual language of the film, and that one jam incident from the perspective of someone who’s read Persuasion more times than is technically healthy. Is this the worst Austen movie ever made or a fun romp that got unfairly trashed? Either way, we’ll delve into the weird, wild world of Persuasion (2022).

Instagram: @CCBcreative
Youtube: Kate & Cat
She/Her

As the witty but unmarried, penniless relation with a penchant for choosing charming but dastardly “”gentlemen,”” Kate is essentially an Austen heroine in the first half of the book. She also designs books, and makes videos about history, sewing, DIY, and renovating a tumbledown country cottage (complete with dark, narrow stairs, a poky hall and a fire that smokes). In her spare time, she photoshops her cat to look like Captain Wentworth and watches Pride & Prejudice (2005) ad infinitum.

3:00 pm UTC – How to Lose a Guy for 8 Years: Adapting Persuasion into a Modern Rom Com Series – Ayelen Barrios Ruiz Pagano, Anya Steiner, Hazel Jeffs, and Jessamyn Leigh

After releasing their series Rational Creatures, a modern take on Persuasion, the creators look back at the process of recontextualizing the novel in the 21st century, and how they worked together as a team of female filmmakers spread across three countries. They’ll reflect on translating an introspective character like Anne Elliot to the screen, queering and gender-swapping characters, adding flashbacks to Ana and Fred’s (Anne and Wentworth’s) high school relationship, choosing to make the Elliot family the Elías family, and much more!

Ayelen Barrios Ruiz Pagano:
pronouns: she/her
Ayelen hails from Toronto, Ontario. She holds a Master’s Degree in Media Production from Toronto Metropolitan University, where she wrote and directed “Nottingham”, a gender-bent Robin Hood web series and transmedia experience.

Anya Steiner:
pronouns: she/her.
Anya is a writer and sometimes filmmaker. Her previous series “Merry Maidens” a queer, gender-bent Robin Hood tale, was an official selection at the MN WebFest in 2017.

Hazel Jeffs:
pronouns: she/her
Hazel is a British writer, educator, marketer, and classic literature nerd who began working with the Rational Creatures team while developing her modern retelling of “Far From the Madding Crowd.”

Jessamyn Leigh:
Pronouns: she/her
Social media: Twitter and Instagram @gingernifty
Jessamyn resides in the Pacific Northwest, where she has worked on several literary inspired web series in various capacities. Her latest foray as a showrunner was “Twincidents”, a genderbent update of Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors”. Jessamyn loves storytelling in all forms, bringing her performing arts background and love of collaboration to all her creative projects.

4:00 pm UTC – “His beautiful grounds at Pemberley” – Show me your estate and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are – Marie – Linguipixie

“Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began; but I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

Is Lizzy’s remark to Jane about Darcy’s “beautiful grounds at Pemberley” weirdly out of character? Did she actually fall in love with him because his house was grand? (mind you, she already knew he was crazy rich…) Maybe the remark is ironic, then – ‘t’would befit Lizzy alright. Well, what if I told you she actually has a good reason to fall in love with Darcy through Pemberley?

In this video, I invite you to go back in time and discover:

how the agricultural revolution completely transformed the English landed elite’s relationship to estate management, beauty and art;
what views Austen held thereupon;
and finally how talks of estate management inform charactarization as much as characterization informs her views on estate management in her novels.

Main source for the info in the video:
Duckworth A.M., The improvement of the estate: a study of Jane Austen’s novels, Baltimore & London, The J. Hopkins University Press, 1971

5:00 pm UTC – The Ceaseless Clink of Pattens – Stepping into 18th-19th Century Material Culture – Sarah Walsh

Footwear in the 18th and 19th centuries was often intricately decorated and made of very fine materials, which did not hold up to the unpaved roads, pathways and tracks in villages or even cities. Pattens were made from pieces of wood or heavy leather with iron rings attached to the undersides, and they were an extremely common solution for lifting one’s feet up out of the mud and muck. This not only protected the shoes, it would have saved Lizzy from being made fun of by the Bingley sisters for her petticoat being “six inches deep in mud” after her walk to Netherfield. The shape of pattens changed with the fashions, but the function remained the same. I will show a pair of early 19th century pattens and talk about Jane Austen’s mention of them in her novels and their ubiquity during her life.

Sarah Walsh is a librarian and educator who has been a reader of Jane Austen since she was at least 15; her first Austen novel, and forever favorite, is “Northanger Abbey.” She is also a living history interpreter who has been portraying Abigail Adams since 2016. She brought together these two interests in a short play titled “Mrs. Adams and the Authoress,” depicting a meeting between the women in Heaven’s library, which she performed with Laura Rocklyn for the inaugural Virtual JaneCon. Having learned machine sewing from her mother at age 10, Sarah is now developing her historical hand sewing skills and is in the process of creating a wardrobe covering Abigail’s life. Sarah and her family live in the DC area, where this country’s history is tangible and accessible in so many ways – to be celebrated, wrestled with, and confronted head-on.

5:00 pm UTC – Dissecting the New Wave of Jane Austen Adaptations (and what the future holds) – Jillian Davis and Yolanda Rodriguez of The Pemberley Podcast

Why does Hollywood continue to make Jane Austen adaptations? Austen’s work has been adapted and reimagined in countless books, TV shows, and movies for each new generation. In this video, we will dive into the latest wave of Jane Austen adaptations (2020-2023) starting with Emma (2020) and ending with Sanditon: Season 3. We’ll also discuss the history of Austen in Hollywood and what we predict out of future adaptations.

Jillian Davis (she/her) is a writer, producer, podcaster, and rom-com fanatic living in Los Angeles. Graduating from Syracuse University as a double major in Television/Radio/Film and English & Textual Studies, she thought she would never use either major, and ended up using both.
She worked for Bernie Su, creator of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Emma Approved before creating The Pemberley Podcast with Yolanda Rodriguez, a podcast with over 130K downloads. With Yolanda, she co-wrote and produced Jane Austen Virtual Book Club, winning first place in the JASNA SW Young Filmmakers Contest and was quoted in CNN.
@jayyydayyy235

Yolanda Rodriguez (she/her) is an LA-based writer and producer. She was born in Bolivia and grew up in Southern California. Yolanda previously worked at BuzzFeed in unscripted digital development. There, she collaborated with creative partners to develop and produce shows in the food, beauty, and true crime genres amassing a cumulative 230 Million+ views on YouTube. She then pivoted to film development and has since been devoting more time to writing.
Yolanda is the co-creator and co-host of The Pemberley Podcast, which discusses Jane Austen and Regency adaptations. The podcast started in 2016 and continues to publish regularly. @thepemberley

6:00 pm UTC – What Jane read: A look at two of Austen’s favourite novels – Jessica Bull, Felicity George

Two authors and dedicated Janeites explore two of Austen’s favourite novels, Evelina by Frances Burney and Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, to find out why she loved them, how they might have influenced her work and whether they’re still worth reading today.

Jessica Bull (she/her) is author of the Miss Austen Investigates historical mystery series, coming early 2024 from Penguin Michael Joseph (UK) and Union Square & Co. (North America). Twitter: @NovelistJessica Insta: @Jessicabullnovelist . Felicity George (she/her) is author of the Gentlemen of London Regency romance series, with the first two books available now from Orion Hachette UK, and book three releasing in Spring 2024. Twitter: @ElizabethWelke Insta: @felicitygeorge_romance

6:00 pm UTC – A Janeite’s Intro to the Gothic – Linsy Hunsaker

I love Austen and the Gothic, but Northanger Abbey often gets sadly overlooked! This presentation will be 30 minutes of defining Gothic literature using Austen’s works and inspirations with fun visuals and a voice over. I am currently a grad student in English Literature at ASU. I’ll use my grad school research techniques and the hours I’ve spent learning to make fun video compilations of my children to expose a side of Austen that many forget is there.

Grad student, former news maker and mom of two, Linsy fell in love with Austen when she was 17 and someone handed her Pride & Prejudice. Since then, she has tried on a few different hats, finally settling on the Gothic as her passion. Luckily for her, Austen has a book for that too.

7:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen and Historical Comics – Courtney Birnbaum

From official adaptations of Austen novels into Marvel comic books, to WEBTOON’s creator-uploaded CANVAS comics made for the love of historical drama, Courtney Birnbaum returns to Virtual Jane Con to discuss the rise of Regency era settings in a less expected visual medium.

Courtney Birnbaum has an MFA in screenwriting from University of Georgia, an orange belt from the Association of Kenpo Martial Artists, and a To Be Read list for books and comics longer than a cross-country drive from her home state Kentucky to Los Angeles. Find her online @harmonicacave.

7:00 pm UTC – Play Time with Jane: A Child-Friendly Look at Games and Toys in the 1700s – Maddie Cole

This presentation is tailored for adults and children ages 4-10. What kinds of games do you play at home? Do you think Austen had games like that? Explore Georgian-era playtime as I share and demonstrate examples of games that Austen played, including some opportunities for children and adults to try their own version! At the end, we make a ball and cup toy together! Materials needed: Tinfoil, paper cup, string, scissors.

Maddie Cole (she/her) has a B.A. in History and an M.S. in Early Childhood Education. She dedicates her career to hands-on place-based educational programs. With over a decade’s experience in children’s museums, zoos, and nature-based preschools, she engages children in meaningful learning experiences. Yet, she’d trade it all in to be mistress of Pemberley! A lifelong Janeite, she relishes every moment where she can apply Austen’s world to her own. When she’s not working on her career or re-reading Pride and Prejudice, she and her partner like to bike, walk in nature, and hang out with their rabbits- Chip and Miss Elizabeth Bunnet.

8:00 pm UTC – The missing adaptations: A history of the “never-ever made” Austen movies and series – Carmen Romero-Sánchez

Since 1938, as far as we know, Jane Austen has been adapted to films or series through period pieces or modern versions from different cultures, like Italian, British, Spanish, Indian, Dutch and many more. In this video, you will get to know about all those projects that were intended to be, but never saw the light, as well as small stories on castings that never made it into the final cut.

Carmen Romero-Sánchez (she/her) is a Spanish Engineer living in France that started with her sister Almudena a website about Austen, “El Sitio de Jane”, more than 20 years ago. Through the social media/forum “El Salón de Té”, their aim is to make Jane Austen more known for Spanish speaking audiences while having a good time, as well as to unite the Austen legacy worldwide, as they welcome janeites from everywhere. She has written articles about the Spanish adaptations of Austen in JASNA, published a book about the Spanish speaking fans (Historia de los Austenitas), made collaborations with universities, libraries and other literature groups, as well as participated already in the VirtualJaneCon 2021, with a video called “Austen Outside the English Countryside”, on period adaptations in other languages than English (https://youtu.be/dl-98Wv5JKk)

8:00 pm UTC – The History of English Country Dance – By a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian – Cassiane Mobley

Jane Austen’s novels prominently feature a form of dancing known as English Country Dance that is quite different from our modern notion of ballroom dancing. Join us to learn the origin of this dance and its long-lasting appeal as well as why social forces in the Regency would finally end it’s 150-year dominance in the English Ballroom.

Cassiane Mobley (they/them) is a Janeite, English Country Dance caller, and independant researcher on historical dancing, specializing in the Regency Era. On their YouTube Channel, Tea with Cassiane, they primarily discuss Regency Dance and issues of neurodivergence. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area with their partner, stepkid, and four cats.

9:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen’s Persuasion Song Cycle – Emily King, PasticheNYC

“A MARRIAGE OF TWO GENIUSES {WHO NEVER MET} MADE IN MUSICAL THEATER HEAVEN…”

Jane Austen’s PERSUASION Song Cycle’s nine songs tell the story of Persuasion, Jane Austen’s last completed, least read and most fiercely debated novel. Set within vivid backgrounds of stately homes, sailing ships and rolling British countryside, beautifully dressed (and hatted!) Austen characters sing out their story of prevention, rejection and recovery of lost love, to the driving, sailing, galloping and dancing chamber works of a surprisingly witty and charming Ludwig van Beethoven.

A feast for the eyes and ears – and the heart – Jane Austen’s PERSUASION Song Cycle celebrates Jane Austen and her ability to triumph over adversity with irony, love and optimism, insisting on a happy ending in her works,
even when real life so often sadly disappoints.

“Lyricist/Director Emily King worked for many years as a writer and editor in the recording industry for RCA Victor and Sony Classics, assisting in the recording of more than 20 Broadway Cast albums, and working with some of the great contemporary lyricists. She is a published translator of French, German, and Italian texts (Chérubin, Roméo et Juliette, William Tell) and subtitles (Tosca, Turandot). She was also happy to act as a new submissions reader at Manhattan Theater Club for Musical Theater Developmental Director Clifford Lee Johnson III.

She wrote or adapted and directed Bridie Now and Then, The Hero of the Slocum, Grace Under Pressure, Paris Malice, and an on-site, full-length version of Maxwell Anderson and Arthur Schwartz’s High Tor. In the opera world, she was assistant director for the Glimmerglass production of Così fan tutte, and put together thematically-linked opera scene evenings for Mannes and new operatic works for Manhattan School of Music.

Almost all of her own theatrical work has had a musical through-line, starting with Fighting Words, in which an aging insomniac Dorothy Parker justifies her life through her writing to her imaginary obituary writer, interlaced with early songs by George and Ira Gershwin. More recently Ms. King has completed song cycles for staged concerts, writing lyrics adapting Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth to music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Jane Austen’s Persuasion, set to chamber music by Ludwig Van Beethoven. New technology and CoVid lockdown led her to develop what may be an entirely new art form from influences as old as magic lantern slideshows and the patchwork quilt: Pastiche! AEA, BMI, UFT.”

9:00 pm UTC – Be Not Alarmed, Austen Characters: We Have Notes! – Andrea Schwartz, Kim Kalish

Jane Austen’s characters have been making questionable decisions for over 200 years. It’s time we gave them a piece of our minds.

Join Andrea (@austen1stdrafts) and Kim (@kimkalish) as they take a look at the decisions of many beloved Jane Austen characters—from the good, to the bad, to the esteemed. Andrea and Kim will tell them what they did right, what they did wrong, or what they forgot to try. Was George Wickham’s problem that he was a bad guy, or that he was bad at being a bad guy?

Grab a glass of wine, a comfy blanket, and a boiled potato, because we have notes!

10:00 pm UTC – A Case for Tilney: A Deeper Look into Northanger Abbey – Briana Michelle Meyer

“Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey” is a book that is considered her take on gothic literature. It’s studied in classes across the globe in various Romantic Literature classes and how it ties in with the gothic literature of the time. And yet, it only has two film adaptations. And why is that?

This video discussion will take a deep dive into the text, the characters, and the themes. It will then be compared to the 2007 adaptation starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild as Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney respectively. The adaptation will also be looked at as a whole during the Austen Revival of the late 1990s and 2000s, ending with the 2009 Emma adaptation. All of this will hopefully give us the answer to one simple question: Why is Northanger Abbey under-adapted when it is studied so widely? And more importantly why Tilney understanding muslin gowns makes him a 10/10.

Briana Michelle Meyer (she/they) currently works part time as a bookseller. She also is currently querying her book, a murder mystery. A long time period drama devotee (since age 6), Briana has seen a good portion of them and knows what she likes and doesn’t like. Her love for period dramas made her fall in love with literature. And yes, she does have the 1994 version of Little Women memorized. She’s active on Twitter under @margoroths and on Instagram and TikTok under @brianamichellemeyer where she is most likely trying to figure out why the latest meme gets her to the very core.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

10:00 am UTC – Was Jane Austen Classist? – The Case of Emma – Charlie

Lady Catherine’s “”shades of Pemberley”, Sir Walter’s Baronetage — Snobbish characters are often subject to criticism and ridicule in Jane Austen’s works. Does this make her a secret social revolutionary, critical of the upper class or even the social class system in general? Some critics might agree; others, interestingly, argue the exact opposite.

This talk takes a look at Emma, a novel that appears to be critical of both its snobbish heroine and social climbers like Mrs. Elton. How does social class shape the relationships and central conflicts in the novel? Why do Emma’s actions endanger the social system in Highbury? And what, if anything, does Austen’s treatment of social class tell us about her own political stance on the subject? Tune in during VirtualJaneCon to find out!

Charlie (she/they) is pursuing an MA in English literature for which she attempts to write as many term papers about Jane Austen as possible. Her friends and family grew tried of hearing about her BA thesis on Emma, so she decided to turn it into a VirtualJaneCon talk. Sporadically, she creates Austen-themed content for her account @talkaustentome on Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr.

4:00 pm UTC – Justice For Vanity Fair 2018 – Amanda-Rae Prescott

This video is going to re-examine the importance of ITV/Amazon’s 2018 miniseries adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair. In fact, Vanity Fair 2018 was an early example of the popularity of culturally conscious casting, using modern music, and veering away from the Austen formula that is found in other recent period dramas. However, poor US and international advertising and negative reviews from canon purists have relegated this miniseries to relative obscurity. The cast and crew continue to influence period dramas today as some have gone on to star in Bridgerton and other series plus the screenwriter also worked on the new adaptation of Tom Jones. This video will analyze these trends and connections plus go into more detail as to why Austen fans should watch or rewatch Vanity Fair 2018.

Amanda-Rae Prescott (she/her) is a freelance pop culture journalist from New York City, specializing in reviewing, contextualizing, and tracking UK period dramas and UK television for American audiences. She has a Masters in Science from the Columbia University School of Journalism. Her interest in period drama and UK television started in childhood growing up in a Caribbean-American household. Her career in covering period dramas professionally began with blogging and Twitter discussions during the US airings of Downton Abbey and evolved into professional publication. Advocacy for expanded racial diversity on screen and behind the scenes of period dramas as well as more fan participation from viewers of diverse backgrounds is a key feature of her reporting on the genre. Her articles reviewing Bridgerton, Sanditon, and other Austen/Austen adjacent topics have previously appeared on US Den Of Geek, GBH Boston’s Drama Club blog, and several podcasts including The History Film Club and History Extra. Online she can be found at http://amandaraeprescott.com/ and on Twitter @amandarprescott.

5:00 pm UTC – How Dare You Change Jane??? – Rachel Amber Bloom

This program will look at how fans of Jane Austen have reacted to different adaptional changes in adaptions in her work, from the lake scene in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice and the “American ending” of the 2005 version to the tone changes in the recent versions of Emma and Persuasion. Even as far back as 1940’s Pride and Prejudice, adaptions were playing fast and loose with the source material. I want to see what the reactions to these changes were when the older adaptions originally came out. And to see if there has been any change in reactions to the older adaptations over time.

Rachel Amber Bloom (She/Her) is a writer and podcaster that discovered Jane Austen in high school and has not been chill about since. Find her at @dramadork884

6:00 pm UTC – Austen & Wollstonecraft: Rational Creature – Tara Clarkson

My short (8-12 minute) talk will consider the role of Austen & Wollstonecraft as preeminent political thinkers of their day, and as shadows-figures of each other: employing similar critical methods, embracing similar moral and aesthetic values, and reaching many of the same conclusions (except in regards to the efficacy and necessity of radical political change). I’ll briefly discuss the psychological and political significance of Wollstonecraft’s novels, their literary shortcomings, and the profound effect that the inadvertent character assassination of Godwin’s ‘Memoirs’ had on the tone, tenor, and subject matter of Austen’s earlier novels (particularly Pride and Prejudice).

Tara Clarkson is a writer and mother of five living on T-Sou-ke territory in British Columbia, Canada.

7:00 pm UTC – Jane Austen: Queen of Comedy – Rhonda Watts & Erin O’Loughlin (Pop DNA Podcast)

This discussion will focus on the comedic genius of Austen’s work and the ways in which we see her influence in some of our favorite modern comedy works. We will look into elements of comedy that Austen mastered, such as parody, satire, incongruity, and exaggeration, drawing comparisons with how modern comedy writers have utilized these elements. Some possible comparisons we might draw could be between the satirical class commentary in Emma and the darkly comedic examination of wealth and class in shows like The White Lotus and Succession; or the use of parody in Northanger Abbey and the Netflix series The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window. We might even talk about Persuasion and Fleabag, because it’s RIGHT THERE.

Rhonda (she/her) and Erin (she/her) (who are respectively a social media manager and a special education consultant by day) started their podcast as a way to talk about nerdy stuff every week. Pop DNA traces the literary, historical, and cultural influences in popular media, with some bad jokes for good measure. Our most recent Austen-related discussion was about the Pride and Prejudice reference and parallels in the 1940s queer period drama A League of Their Own. But topics of discussion have ranged broadly, from series on popular works such as Stranger Things, Bridgerton, and Knives Out, among others, to a bonus episode deep-diving into the history of gothic fiction, to a summer series on our favorite classic plays and musicals. Pop DNA is on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and on Instagram @popdnapodcast. Erin is @motherofgrumble and Rhonda is @rhondawithabook on Instagram, and @rhondatoksaboutbooks on TikTok.

8:00 pm UTC – A Court of Fey And Flowers: the Austen Adaptation We Needed – Emily Friedman, Emily Kugler, Sylvan Baker, Austin Anderson, Eliza Alexander Wilcox

We plan to recruit 5 minute “lightning talks” from folks writing about A Court of Fey and Flowers, to be compiled into one experience.

Emily Friedman (she/her) is an associate professor of English at Auburn University. An 18th-century specialist and book historian by training, her current work focuses on the long history of creativity outside commercial mass media, from never-published manuscript fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries to creator cultures of the 21st. Her current book project is Improvised Worlds: Digital Storytelling Through Play.

Emily Kugler (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Howard University. She is also a faculty member within the newly launched LGBTQ+ Black Studies program currently housed in Interdisciplinary Studies. Her research focuses on histories of enslavement, empire, literary and print networks, digital humanities, and gender studies.

Austin Anderson (he/him) is a PhD candidate at Howard University.

Eliza Alexander Wilcox (they/she) is a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee studying queer femininity and disability in the traditional long eighteenth and nineteenth century archive and in new media representations. Their research on queer fem(me)ininity and Regency-era media is forthcoming from feral feminisms, and their dissertation will trace the emergence and visibility of queer femmes and queer fem(me)ininity in the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Sylvan Baker (she/her) is a PhD student at Auburn University. Her work focuses on material ecologies of new media forms.

Jane Austen and Taylor Swift provide smart, formally brilliant takes on crucial social issues. While being hugely popular, particularly with women audiences, and critically praised, each has also been denigrated as “less serious” for their both perceived focus on feminocentric issues and their popularity. In this paper, I read Austen through Swift, with a focus on Pride and Prejudice and the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Both Austen and Swift are also criticized for presenting and representing specifically white femininity. As a woman of color who is a Swift and Austen fan, I argue for the ways in which Taylor Swift’s lyrics offer a contemporary gloss on Austen’s famous romantic pairing but also for the ways in which popular women’s media expresses themes of love, romance, yearning, and female subjectivity explaining why these stories are universally important and can be read through an intersectional framework.

Tiffany (she/her), a New York City native, graduated from Mills College at Northeastern University with her master’s in British Literature with a focus on race, class, and gender in the 19th century. She wrote and designed an illuminated manuscript book titled Maidens in the Moorlands: Black Women in 19th-Century British Literature that analyzes The Woman of Colour by an anonymous author and The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat. She presented on Jane Austen’s unfinished work Sanditon at the VirtualJaneCon and Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya at the panel on gothic literature, film & culture at the Popular Culture Association. Recently she gave a talk analyzing The Hacienda by Cañas in conversation with Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier at the Nineteenth Century Studies Association conference. She worked as a copy editor on the Routledge Companion to 18th-century English Literature. Currently, she is a research assistant on Mapping Black London and an instructor at Kaplan International Languages – English School.

Instagram // @tiffanyfranchescacruz & @tiffanycruzreads

A note on time: All listed times are in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Convert to your time zone here.

Subscribe for updates right to your inbox right here.

Important Dates

Submissions open: February 25-April 15, 2023
Final programming decisions locked: May 1, 2023
Moderation Training/Info session: June, 2023
Presenters to have video draft in for review: July 1-2, 2023
#VirtualJaneCon happens!!: July 15-16, 2023

A note on time: All listed times are in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Convert to your time zone here.

Subscribe for updates right to your inbox right here.