 |
2004 Annual General Meeting
Jane Austen Society of North America October
7-10, 2004 Anne Elliot in the City: Interior and Exterior Worlds |
PROGRAM
Breakout
Speakers
| So many choices! So little
time! To assist you in selecting from among all of these enticing
sessions, we’ve identified six strands: The Royal Navy, Persuasion on Film,
Interior Worlds, Exterior Worlds, City vs. Country, Love &
Courtship, and Readers’ Theatre |
| Session A, Friday, October 8, 2004 3:14 pm to 4:15 pm |
Elvira Casal, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA
“ ‘More distinguished in its domestic virtues’: Men, Women and the Navy”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “More Distinguished in His Domestic Virtues: Captain Wentworth Comes Home.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 146-155.
The final line in Persuasion describes the navy as
“that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its
domestic virtues than in its national importance.” The
relationship between the world of the navy and the domestic world of
women will be examined, including the question of whether women belong
on ships, and the experiences of women who stay “at home, quiet,
confined.” The Royal Navy
Strand Breakout #A1
Moved
to C4.
Margaret McBride Horwitz, New College Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
“The Role of the City of Bath in Anne Elliot’s Journey Home”
The 1995 BBC film adaptation of Persuasion poses two
questions: what is Anne Elliot’s perceived value to those in her
circle (interior world), and where is her true home (exterior setting)
after her family’s financial decline and relocation to Bath?
Images of light, windows, water and music will be explored. Persuasion
on Film Strand Breakout # A2
David Monaghan, Mt. St. Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
“Social Change, Personal Development and the Dynamics of Movement in Persuasion”
This is an exploration of urban
and rural space and movement, in which the presenter concentrates on
Anne and Wentworth’s innovative spatial machinations to achieve a
renewed relationship. This movement motif, the presenter argues,
reveals Austen’s awareness of her society evolving toward modern
communities. Persuasion
on Film Strand Breakout #A3
Jean E. Brassil, Clinical Psychologist, Derby, CT, USA
“Anne Elliot, Practicing Psychologist”
Anne Elliot, like Elizabeth
Bennet, was a student of character. Austen describes Anne as
possessing “a quickness of perception . . . a nicety in the discernment
of character, a natural penetration.” Surely these
characteristics make her a good psychologist! Interior Worlds Strand
Breakout #A4
“Learning Romance from Scott and Byron”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “Learning Romance from Scott and Byron: Jane Austen’s Natural Sequel.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 73-88.
As Anne and Benwick sit apart
from the group in Lyme, they talk “of poetry, of the richness of the
present age,” and—in particular—of two “first-rate poets,” Walter Scott
and Lord Byron. How might their poems illuminate the issues and
tactics of Austen’s most romantic (and most Romantic) novel? Interior Worlds Breakout #A5
Mary M. Chan, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AL, Canada
“The White Glare of Bath: Seeking and Avoiding the Controlling Gaze in Persuasion”
In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney
declares that social order is maintained in England partly because of a
“neighborhood of voluntary spies.” An aspect of the exterior
world, the Bath gaze, has effects upon the interior psychology of its
residents. What does this mean for Anne Elliot, who attempts to
maintain her own interior vision in spite of the Bath gaze? Interior/Exterior Worlds
Strand Breakout
#A6
June Sturrock, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
“Dandies, Beauties, and the Issue of Good Looks in Persuasion”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “Dandies, Beauties, and the Issue of Good Looks in Persuasion.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 41-50.
This presentation, which includes
a showing of prints and paintings of the more celebrated beaux and
belles of the period, centers on the Regency period’s notorious concern
with masculine as well as feminine beauty. The presenter explores
the implications of Austen’s contrasting representations of appearances
in Persuasion and considers
Anne’s altered appearance as communicating a responsive and living
reality central to the autumnal tone of the novel. Exterior Worlds Strand
Breakout #A7
Kathleen Anderson, Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL, USA
“Anne’s Bath: Water Women and City Sisters in Persuasion”
We love Anne Elliot because she
is boundless, like the sea. Trace the functions of water imagery
in the novel as a plot catalyst and note how female characters are
differentiated by their associations with water or indoor city
spaces. City/Country
Strand Breakout
#A8
Kay Young, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
“ ‘You Pierce My Soul’ ”
Commenting on the mind/body
disconnect that Elizabeth Bennet displays in Pride and Prejudice (she “rather
knew that she was happy, than felt herself to be so”), this
presentation compares her reaction to those of Anne and Wentworth’s in Persuasion. The latter feel
with their bodies as well as their minds; Anne’s heart beats “in
spite of herself” and Wentworth’s more lengthy coming to
consciousness—which happens through his body’s movements away from and
then toward Anne’s—leads at last to “senseless joy.” Love and Courtship Strand
Breakout #A9
| Session B, Friday, October 8, 2004 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm |
Judith Fiedler, Seattle, WA, USA
“Anne Wentworth Aboard and Abroad”
The fictional Anne Wentworth had
many real-life counterparts who were permitted to sail with their naval
captain husbands. We will follow Anne--as a prototypical naval
wife--to a number of ports visited by the Royal Navy such as Canton,
Constantinople, Naples, and Bombay. What did these ladies see,
and how were they affected by a world wider than any anticipated by
their respectable upbringings? The Royal Navy Strand
Breakout #B1
Alden O’Brien, DAR Museum, Washington, D. C., USA
“Bath as Center of Fashion and Leisure”
This costume and textile curator
will discuss Anne Elliot’s experience of Bath in light of that city’s
unique position as a dictator of fashion and leisure. Differences
between city and country, and the status of Anne’s emotional
development, will be highlighted by examining costume choices in the
recent film adaptation. Persuasion on Film Strand Breakout #B2
Juliet McMaster, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
“The Sounds of Silence: Anne Elliot Among the Talkers”
This popular presenter explores
Anne Elliot’s unvoiced responses and dialogue. Concentrating also
on the strident interactions of those around Anne, she comments on the
ways in which the silences and the sounds affect and complement each
other. She argues that Anne’s internal speech makes her the most
emotionally accessible of Austen’s heroines. Interior Worlds Strand
Breakout #B3
Persuasion is a novel with four
principal settings, two rural, one urban and one neither:
Kellynch, Uppercross, Bath, and Lyme Regis. The question of why
the fourth is included—a south coastal town, as opposed to an inland
country estate or resort city—is indispensable to a full understanding
of the novel. Exterior
Worlds Strand Breakout
#B4
Laurie Kaplan, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, USA
“Sir Walter Elliot’s Looking-Glass, Mary Musgrove’s Sofa and Anne Elliot’s Chair: Exteriority/Interiority, Intimacy/Society”
“Sir Walter Elliot’s Looking-Glass, Mary Musgrove’s Sofa and Anne Elliot’s Chair: Exteriority/Interiority, Intimacy/Society”
Jane Austen
uses furniture and household furnishing to establish character and to
comment on such abstract qualities as vanity, independence, dignity,
pride, comfort, social importance, and taste. Throughout the
novel, pieces of furniture reflect character in complex ways as well as
adding comic and dramatic possibilities. Exterior World Strand
Breakout #B5
Elaine Bander, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
“From Interior to Exterior Worlds; or, Anne Elliot Goes Hollywood”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “From Interior to Exterior Worlds: Anne Elliot Goes to Hollywood.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 136-145.
At the
opening of Persuasion, Anne
Elliot’s tastes are all for country life; she dislikes the superficial
pleasures and shallow social intercourse of cities and
watering-places. Nevertheless, Anne’s life is uprooted, sending
her first to Lyme and later to Bath where her life becomes public and
externalized, even a subject for gossip by others. City/Country Strand Breakout #B6
Susan E. Jones, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Palm Beach, FL, USA
“‘Threadcases, pincushions and cardracks’: Women’s Work in the City ”
Sarah Frantz, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
“ ‘No intercourse but what the commonest civility required’: Interior and Exterior Conversations and the Course of True Love”
Direct conversation between Anne
Elliot and Frederick Wentworth is so fraught with feeling and meaning
that the former lovers seem unable to attempt it for most of the
novel. It takes written communication—the famous letter—for them
to finally stop talking at cross-purposes and converse together. Love and Courtship Strand
Breakout #B8
Louise Heal, Sugiyama Women’s University, Nagoya, Japan
William Phillips, Aichi Prefectural University, Aichi, Japan
“ ‘A little quiet cheerfulness’: A Readers’ Theatre Reflection on the Pleasures of City and Country Life”
Employing a readers’ theatre
form, this group will present a reflection on a constant theme in
Austen’s works, the contrast between town and city life. Drawing mainly
from Austen’s novels, especially Persuasion—which compares the
rusticity of Uppercross with the urban pleasures of Bath—the
collaborators have also adapted material from other contemporaneous
writers. They are also planning a few surprises! Readers’ Theatre Strand
Breakout #B9
| Session C, Saturday, October 9. 2004 8:30 am to 9:30 am |
Theresa
Kenney, University of Dallas,
TX, USA
“ ‘As she was not really Mrs. Croft’: Playing the Admiral’s Wife in Bath”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “‘As she was not really Mrs. Croft’: Playing the Admiral’s Wife in Bath.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 51-61.
“ ‘As she was not really Mrs. Croft’: Playing the Admiral’s Wife in Bath”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “‘As she was not really Mrs. Croft’: Playing the Admiral’s Wife in Bath.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 51-61.
Walking up
Milsom-street, Anne encounters a solitary Admiral Croft and joins him
in his walk. This passage of the novel obviously advances the
plot of the novel in allowing Anne to hear the news of Louisa’s
engagement to Benwick. But does it also allow Anne to “try out”
Mrs. Croft’s role as wife? This scene is fraught with interesting
suggestions of marital compatibility. Love and Courtship Strand
Breakout #C1
Alison Shea, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
“ ‘Allow me to interpret this interesting silence’: Conveying Anne Elliot’s Interiority Through Silence in Novel and Film Versions of Persuasion.”
Persuasion reveals how active and
knowing silences can be and demonstrates Austen’s deep awareness of how
meaning accrues through non-verbal language. Using Michell’s 1995
film adaptation, the presenter will demonstrate how deftly the moral
worth of Anne’s interiority is dramatized and will discuss the wealth
of film techniques utilized to convey her inner world. Persuasion on Film Strand Breakout # C2
Sayre Greenfield, University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, PA, USA
Linda Troost, Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, PA, USA
“City and Country Life on the Screen”
Comparative
clips of the two telefilms of Persuasion
will be shown with commentary and audience participation.
Greenfield and Troost are the editors of Jane Austen in
Hollywood. Persuasion on Film Strand Breakout #C3
Diana Birchall, Author, Los Angeles, CA, USA
“Writers of the Austen-Leigh Persuasion”
There have
been several other writers in the Austen and Austen-Leigh family, in
addition to Jane. Lois Austen-Leigh, a detective novelist of the
1930’s, was the granddaughter of James Edward Austen-Leigh, Jane
Austen’s favorite nephew. She was also aunt to our own Joan
Austen-Leigh. Explore the literary and historic interest sparked
by these spirited writers. Interior
Worlds Strand Breakout #C4
Moved
to A1
Jeanie Page Randall, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN, USA
“Good Manners? Good Grief! Anne Elliot and Virtue Ethics”
This
presenter addresses the concept of virtue ethics, developed by Alastair
McIntyre of Vanderbilt University in the 1970’s, which is based on an
analysis of the way people behave and how they treat each other.
A discussion of Anne Elliot’s exceptionally fine character will show
her to be a prime example of this concept. Interior Worlds Strand
Breakout #C5
Laura Mooneyham White, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA
“The ‘Positioning Systems’ of Persuasion”
This
discussion explores Anne Elliot’s spatial hypersensitivity—she is
acutely in touch with her placement in relation to others, literally
and metaphorically—a capability that brings to mind a modern
technological development, the global positioning system. Austen
uses this theme of spatial and social positioning to control her
narrative and guide Anne and Wentworth’s navigation towards each other
with the most precise of movements. Exterior Worlds Strand Breakout #C6
Celia A. Easton, State University of New York, Genesco, NY, USA
“Austen’s Urban Redemption: Rejecting Richardson’s View of the City”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “Austen’s Urban Redemption: Rejecting Richardson’s View of the City.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 121-135.
Although
Jane Austen claimed that Samuel Richardson was one of her favorite
authors, nowhere is her break with the eighteenth-century novelist
clearer than in her descriptions of young women in the city. Jane
Austen rejects Richardson’s simplistic demonizing of urban
settings. Bath is a thrilling place for Persuasion’s Lady Russell
and is ultimately the scene of Anne Elliot’s success in love. City/Country Strand Breakout # C7
Rachel Lawrence, Attorney, Davis, CA, , USA
“Good Shepherds and Worthless Young Men: Jane Austen’s Country and City Lawyers”
This
practicing attorney concentrates on Jane Austen’s depiction of the two
lawyers in Persuasion, Mr.
Shepherd and Mr. Elliot, contrasting their respective rural and city
backgrounds. She explores why--despite the fact that the law was
the third profession open to gentlemen of the era--no Austen hero
chooses to “go into the law.” City/Country
Strand Breakout
#C8
Pamela Regis, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD, USA
“ ‘Her happiness was from within’: Courtship and the Interior World in Persuasion”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “‘Her happiness was from within’: Courtship and the Interior World in Persuasion.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 62-71.
Drawing from
her recent book, A Natural History of
the Romance Novel, this presenter focuses on the courtship plot
employed in Persuasion.
The second wooing of Anne Elliot is a fascinating interrogation of the
process itself and demonstrates that a successful courtship is an
interior matter, enacted within the couple’s minds and hearts. Love and Courtship Strand
Breakout #C9
| Session D, Saturday, October 9, 2004 11:00 am to 12:00 pm |
Zoyd
R. Luce, President,
Risorgimento Management, Dublin, CA, USA
“Anne Elliot Goes to Sea”
“Anne Elliot Goes to Sea”
Mr. Luce
offers us a review of the life and times of women who went to sea with
their husbands on British warships, as Anne Elliot may have done, after
her marriage to Captain Wentworth. A careful reading of journals,
ship logs and naval histories allows him to illustrate the conditions
of Anne’s life after the novel’s “happy ending.” The Royal Navy Strand
Breakout #D1
Cancelled
- Lance
Weldy, Texas A&M,
Commerce, TX, USA
Lisa Weldy, Bob Jones University Greenville, NC, USA
“The Rhetoric of Feminine, Spatial Displacement: The Dialectic of Interiors and Exterior in Michell’s Persuasion and Rozema’s Mansfield Park”
Lisa Weldy, Bob Jones University Greenville, NC, USA
“The Rhetoric of Feminine, Spatial Displacement: The Dialectic of Interiors and Exterior in Michell’s Persuasion and Rozema’s Mansfield Park”
The
presenters utilize Gaston Bachelard’s concepts of “felicitous space” as
a key to understanding the female experience in Austen’s novels and
film adaptations. Video clips will be used to demonstrate both
Anne Elliot’s and Fanny Price’s respective searches for felicitous
spaces of their own. Persuasion on Film Strand Breakout #D2
Sally
B. Palmer, South Dakota
School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD USA
“Anne Takes the Cure: Persuasion and the Spa”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “Anne Takes the Cure: Persuasion and the Spa.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 111-120.
“Anne Takes the Cure: Persuasion and the Spa”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “Anne Takes the Cure: Persuasion and the Spa.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 111-120.
This
presenter considers if Austen subconsciously accepted the prevailing
cultural faith in the healing powers of the spa. She demonstrates
that the psychological character changes in Persuasion parallel the
sequences of spa activities recommended at that time by Royal College
physicians--salutary and filled with renewal. Interior Worlds Strand
Breakout #D3
Leslie Nyman, Pelham, MA, USA
Sarah Emsley, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
“ ‘Don’t tell me what to read!’ Friendship, Advice, and Persuasion”
This lively
point/counterpoint presentation will debate whether Anne’s advice to
Benwick about what he should read is friendly guidance or misguided
meddling. The balance between romance and realism will be
explored in the context of the complex interplay between independent
discovery and deference to authority. Audience discussion will be
encouraged. Interior
Worlds Strand
Breakout #D4
William Phillips, Aichi Prefectural University, Aichi, Japan
Russell Clark, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, US
“ ‘What queer fellows your fine painters must be’: The Rise of Public Art as an Urban Pleasure in the Time of Jane Austen”
These two
presenters, examining the growing popularity of public versus private
art in Austen’s time, will discuss the growing trade in art prints such
as those Admiral Croft studies in a shop window in Persuasion.
Slides of some of the works that Jane Austen may have seen at an
exhibition by The Royal Academy will be shown, and conclusions are
drawn as to Austen’s attitudes toward the making and displaying of
art. Exterior Worlds
Strand Breakout
#D5
Juliette Wells, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY, USA
“ ‘In music she had been always used to feel alone in the world’: Anne EIliot’s Music-Making in Social, Literary, and Personal Contexts”
Published in Persuasions 26 (2004). “‘In music she had always used to feel alone in the world’: Jane Austen, Solitude, and the Artistic Woman.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 98-110.
This
discussion-oriented session, led by a lifelong musician, will not only
explore Anne Elliot’s music-making in Persuasion
but will compare it to that of other Austen heroines--as well as to
that of Austen herself. The importance of the amateur arts in the
lives of audience participants will be a topic of further
discussion. Exterior
Worlds Strand Breakout
#D6
Gloria Sybil Gross, California State University, Northridge, CA, USA
“ ‘Pictures of perfection as you know make me sick & wicked’: The Interior World of Persuasion”
The world of
Persuasion presents a
catalog of brutes countered by the heroine who is “always right.”
As such, the novel becomes Austen’s most severe satire of society, and
--more particularly—of city life, the venue of its most critical
scenes. Far from the deft handiwork of light ironic comedy,
levity and gay burlesque of polite society of previous novels, Persuasion often leans toward
pathos and even melodrama. City/Country Strand Breakout #D7
Elizabeth Morrison, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
“Finding Exactly the Right Spot to Pop the Question: Proposing Out of Doors in the Novels of Jane Austen”
This
presentation examines the circumstances of the proposals in each of
Austen’s novels, concentrating on the original and revised endings of Persuasion. For Austen
heroines, the presenter argues, the out of doors was the ideal setting,
and she speculates on what that may have connoted to Austen’s
contemporary audience. Love and Courtship Strand
Breakout #D8
Julie Arnold, Kimberly Brangwin, Mary Perillo, and Jeanne Tackett, Puget Sound WA, USA
“Lady Elliot Entertains: a Conversation at Kellynch Hall” written by Judith Fiedler
On a stormy
afternoon in November, 1816, the daughters of the late Sir Walter
Elliot return to Kellynch Hall. The wife of the present Baronet, Lady
Elliot (the former Mrs. Clay), has summoned Miss Elliot, Mrs. Musgrove,
and Mrs. Wentworth to discuss several problems which have arisen since
Sir William's accession to the title and estate. Their conversation,
overheard and transcribed by an interested listener, is presented by
four members of the Puget Sound Region. Readers’ Theatre Strand
Breakout #D9
| Fashion
illustrations are adapted from scans of Regency fashion illustrations
to be found on Henry Churchyard's web site. The originals of
these and others may be viewed at: http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppbrokil.html |
