Feelings, Emotions and Neurons

By our speaker Wendy Jones

"I will leave you," said Elinor, [to Marianne] "if you will go to bed." But this, from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first refused to do. Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion, however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her aching head on the pillow...

In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand."My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. "Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, ... "how good you are! But I have just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me leave, I will drink the wine myself." 
Sense and Sensibility chapter 30

Event:     JASNA CWNY May Meeting

Speaker: Wendy Jones, author of Jane on the Brain: Exploring the Science of Intelligence with Jane Austen

When:    Saturday May 19, 2018 at 1 pm

Where:   Pittsford Barnes and Noble, Community Room

One of the reasons Jane Austen’s novels have retained their popularity is that her characters are so real. They come alive not because of what they do, but because of what they think and feel. Each of them exists in a small society of “three or four families in a country village”, and each of them interacts intensely with the people in that little society. Some, like Edmund Bertram, haven’t a clue about what is going on. Others, like Elinor Dashwood, are intensely aware of the feelings and emotions of other characters, although Elinor is certainly able to enjoy a glass of the finest old Constantia wine while dealing with Marianne's suffering. Jane Austen's characters all exhibit varying degrees of social intelligence, and Jane Austen perfectly captures the state of their minds as they navigate their social surroundings.

Two hundred years after Jane Austen wrote her novels, psychologists and neurobiologists have a much better, although still very incomplete, understanding of how humans respond to their social and physical environments. In her book Jane on the Brain: Exploring the Science of Social Intelligence with Jane Austen, Wendy Jones examines the psychology of Jane Austen’s characters, drawing on the basics of anatomy and physiology. She brings a solid basis of biological science to understanding the feelings and emotions exhibited by Jane Austen’s characters. She writes:

“As far as I know, all the books that discuss Austen’s fiction or her appeal invoke the psychology of her characters in one way or another. My book is no exception. But I go one step further, discussing her characters in depth but with a difference, peering beneath the surface of the mind into the anatomy and neurochemistry of the brain… I look at social intelligence through the psychological analysis of Austen’s characters, but then turn the page to find what lies beneath in the physiology.”

Wendy Jones will be the speaker at our May meeting. She is currently a psychotherapist practicing in Ithaca, NY. She has a PhD in English Literature from Cornell University, and she has worked as a Senior Lecturer and a Fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. She spoke at the most recent AGM in Huntington Beach CA, and I was fortunate to hear her very insightful talk “Empathic Austen: Every Reader’s Forever Friend”.

Please join us to learn more about Jane Austen and the science of social intelligence.