October 27 - 29, 2006
Loews Ventana Canyon Resort  Tucson, Arizona

2006 Annual General Meeting
Jane Austen Society of North America

Plenary Speakers

Late News!  We regret that plenary speakers Maggie Lane and Jon Spence are unable to attend the 2006 AGM. Both Jon and Maggie send their apologies and best wishes to JASNA attendees. We thank Maggie for sending her paper, which JASNA Vice President/President-Elect Marsha Huff will deliver on her behalf. And, we thank Emily Auerbach for graciously agreeing on short notice to deliver her presentation as our Thursday evening plenary speaker.

The meeting was generally felt to be a pleasant one, being composed in a good proportion of those who would talk and those who would listen.

― Mansfield Park

Drawing on his recent experiences preparing the Cambridge edition of Mansfield Park, John Wiltshire will tell of his journeys, both intellectual and real, in search of information that throws new light on the novel and reveals previously hidden facets. He will also explore the “historicisation” of Austen and the role of scholarship in creating ‘competent’ or receptive readers of Jane Austen. Dr. Wiltshire teaches English at Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and has published several books on Jane Austen, including Jane Austen and the Body: "The Picture of Health", Recreating Jane Austen, and Jane Austen: Introductions and Interventions.

The Carol Medine Moss Keynote lecture will be delivered by Jon Spence, author of Becoming Jane Austen. While Mansfield Park has long been acknowledged to include details and plot elements taken from Jane Austen’s own life, Dr. Spence will explore another, perhaps less direct, layer of family influence working in the novel. In this session, he will examine the role of the Leighs—their estates, their portraits, and their history—in stimulating Austen’s imagination, particularly in the creation of Mansfield Park. Dr. Spence spent most of his professional academic life in Japan, where he held the position of Professor of English Literature at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Now living in Sydney, Australia, he has also published A Century of Wills from Jane Austen's Family, and most recently, Jane Austen's Brother Abroad: The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen.

Jane Austen’s Relics and the Treasures of the East Room
Saturday, October 28, 9:00 a.m.
Published in Persuasions 28 (2006). “Jane Austen’s Relics and the Treasures of the East Room.” Persuasions 28 (2006): 217-230.

The 2006 AGM North American Scholar lecture will be delivered by Claudia Johnson. Drawing from her forthcoming book Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures, which traces the many forms that the love of Jane Austen has taken from her death until the present, she will explore the formation of the Jane Austen Museum in the 1940s and the ways in which the collection of Austenian scraps, relics, and remnants can illuminate Mansfield Park. Dr. Johnson is Department Chair and Professor of English Literature at
Princeton University, and has authored numerous works on 18th and 19th century literature, including Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel and Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimentality in the 1790s. She has also prepared scholarly editions of several Austen novels, including the Norton Critical Edition of Mansfield Park.

Star-gazing with Fanny Price
Saturday, October 28, 1:30 p.m.
Published in Persuasions 28 (2006). “Star-gazing with Fanny Price.” Persuasions 28 (2006): 150-165.

Maggie Lane returns to North America and to JASNA to explore how Volume One of Mansfield Park shows Jane Austen at the height of her powers. While the visit to Sotherton and the episode of the theatricals are widely and properly admired, Ms. Lane will focus on Chapter 11, an ostensibly quiet interlude separating these two great set pieces. Close reading of the chapter reveals how Austen uses it to develop the important themes of the novel, including education, ordination, and conjugal manners. By the end of this lecture, we will have a deeper appreciation of the superb artistry of chapter, volume, and novel. Ms. Lane is the author of many books about Jane Austen, including her most recent works Jane Austen’s World, Jane Austen and Names, and Jane Austen and Lyme Regis.