Registration for each event opens during the early part of the month in which the event takes place 

May

Saturday, May 15, 2021 at 1:00 pm EDT

"Costuming the Regency from the 

Bennets to the Bridgertons"

Alden O’Brien is the Curator of Costume and Textiles at the DAR Museum in Washington DC. She has curated numerous exhibitions on quilts and clothing, including “Fashioning the New Woman,” “Eye on Elegance: Early Quilts of Maryland and Virginia,” and "’An Agreeable Tyrant’: Fashion After the Revolution,” which was on view during the Washington, DC AGM. A fan of period drama since her mother let her stay up late to watch Masterpiece Theatre in its earliest years, Alden has frequently lectured on period costume design, especially focusing on the Regency. 

Register here by Thursday, May 13, 2021

 at 11:59 pm.

 Registration for each event opens during the early part of the month in which the event takes place 

April

Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 1:00 pm

“Mansfield Park and the Sacred Landscape”

Mansfield Park is usually considered Austen’s most overtly religious novel. While previous discussions have focused on such issues as “ordination” and the work’s engagement with Evangelicalism, this talk adds a new dimension to the discussion of the novel’s religious content by examining the many allusions to medieval ecclesiastical buildings. What does Austen reveal about her religious commitments through her evocation of the past?

Professor Moore's attention to detail and sense of humor make him a very enjoyable speaker. He served as a plenary speaker at the 2019 AGM in Williamsburg, VA.

Please click here to register by 

Thursday, April 15 at 11:59 pm

Roger E. Moore is Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Science and Principal Senior Lecturer in English at Vanderbilt, where he has taught since 1995. He is responsible for advising undergraduate students on a variety of academic issues, from designing interdisciplinary majors to applying for leaves of absence from the University. He chairs the Administrative Committee, which considers all aspects of the academic records of Arts and Science students, including class promotion, probationary status, and student petitions for exceptions to faculty legislation.

A specialist in early-modern English literature and religion, he is the author of scholarly articles on Christopher Marlowe, Sir Philip Sidney, and Geoffrey Chaucer, among others, in SEL, Religion and Literature and Studies in Philology. His most recent work explores nostalgia for monasteries and the monastic life in England from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, work that has inspired two articles on Jane Austen and his book, Jane Austen and the Reformation: Remembering the Sacred Landscape (Ashgate/Routledge 2016). The recipient of the Harriet S. Gilliam Award for Excellence in Teaching (2003) and the Ernest A. Jones Faculty Adviser Award (2008), Moore teaches courses in seventeenth-century literature and the English Reformation as well as introductory writing courses and surveys of British literature.

Dean Moore serves on the Board of Directors of the Nashville Ballet and is Senior Warden of the Vestry at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal).

 

Registration for each event opens during the early part of the month in which the event takes place 

March

World Premiere!

"The Early Life of Lady Catherine de Bourgh"

Saturday, March 20 at 1:00 pm EDT

Marianne Liotard holding a doll, c1775 by Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-89)

JASNA CWNY's March meeting will be the world premiere reading of "The Early Life of Lady Catherine de Bourgh," a play adapted by Robert Moss from A. Marie Sprayberry's "Lady Catherine de Bourgh" backstory in the Austen Alliance ebook, What Jane Austen Didn't Tell Us!  The cast includes A. Marie Sprayberry, Jane Knoeck, Jameson S. Yu, Aniela Wolkonowski, and Robert Moss, as Actors One, Two, Three, Four, and Five, respectively. 

Among Janeites, Robert Moss may be best known for his readers' theatre adaptation of Lady Susan, which was performed at the Morgan Library in New York in conjunction with the 2012 JASNA Annual General Meeting in Brooklyn. He has been the artistic director of five theaters across New York State:  Edward Albee's Playwrights Unit,  Playwrights Horizons,  the Queen's Theatre in the Park, the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, and Syracuse Stage.  Most recently, he has taught in Nazareth College's Theatre Department. 

A. Marie Sprayberry retired in 2020 after 36 years of telecommuting for Guilford Publications, which publishes texts in mental health, self-help, education, and other disciplines. "Lady Catherine de Bourgh" is her first published work of fiction. Marie was Regional Coordinator for JASNA Syracuse until the Syracuse and Rochester Regions were merged in 2015 to form JASNA Central and Western New York, and she continues to serve on the JASNA CWNY executive committee.

Click here to register.

The Austen Alliance ebook, What Jane Austen Didn't Tell Us! can be purchased from Amazon.

Registration for each event opens during the first week of the month in which the event takes place  

February

Q & A with Soniah Kamal

Author of Unmarriageable

A witty modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Pakistan

Saturday, February 20 at 1:00 pm 

Register here by Thursday,

February 18 at 11:59 pm EST

Soniah Kamal is a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). She serves on the JASNA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee (JEDI).  Soniah was a Featured Plenary Panelist at 2020 JASNA AGM and she was the 2020 Keynote Speaker at the Jane Austen Festival held by JASNA Louisville, Kentucky.

Soniah is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and public speaker. Her recent novel, Unmarriageable, is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, a 2019 Book All Georgians Should Read, a 2020 Georgia Author of the Year in Literary Fiction nominee and shortlisted for the 2020 Townsend Prize for Fiction. Her debut novel, An Isolated Incident, was a finalist for the KLF French Fiction Prize and the Townsend Prize for Fiction. Soniah’s TEDx talk is about second chances and ‘We are the Ink’, her  U.S. Citizenship Oath Ceremony address is about immigrants and the American Dream. Her work is in the New York Times, Guardian, Buzzfeed, Catapult, Normal School, Georgia Review, and more. 

Soniah was born in Pakistan, grew up in England and Saudi Arabia, and lived all over the US, and currently in Georgia.

______________________________________________________

Registration for each event opens during the first week of the month in which the event takes place.

Abolition and the Female Consumer

 

William Wilberforce
a leader in the movement to abolish the British slave trade
By Anton Hickel - Image: Bridgeman Art Gallery; Portrait: Wilberforce House, Hull Museum

"But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?" Mansfield Park chapter 21

With 2020 behind us we can hopefully look forward to better things in 2021. Here is JASNA's Central and Western New York region we will begin the year with our Jane and Cassandra Austen Birthday celebration. We will continue to be virtual for awhile yet, but, perhaps by the fall we will be able to gather in person again.

Please join us to hear Tricia Matthew, University of Buffalo Scholar in Residence seek on "I hope white hands": Abolition and the Female Consumer. From the speaker:

"Based on my research trip to seven cities in the United Kingdom, this talk focuses on abolition, Josiah Wedgwood, and women as consumers. When we pay attention to the ways that the three intersect, we can better understand Regency-era culture and the rituals it taught women to follow as they participated more fully in public debates."

Details below:

Event:   JASNA CWNY (Virtual) Jane and Cassandra Austen Birthday Celebration

Topic:    "I hope white hands": Abolition and the Female Consumer

               A talk by University of Buffalo Scholar in Residence Tricia Matthew

When:    Saturday, January 16, 2021 at 1 pm EST 

Where:   Online through Zoom, pre-registration required

Note:      Enjoy birthday cake and/or popovers at home.

               Don't forget to have a suitable beverage on hand for the birthday toast!

Registration: Use the link below to fill out the registration form:

Registration Form

Link to registration form

https://forms.gle/zsycW3NXSmDcEt749

Susan Allen Ford on Jane Austen and the Economies of Alteration

  

Jane Austen Watercolor by Cassandra Austen

"I shall want two new colored gowns for the summer, for my pink one will not do more than clear me from Steventon." 

Jane Austen Letter to Cassandra 25 January 1801

Event:   JASNA CWNY December Meeting

Topic:    "Just in a happy state of flounce": Jane Austen's Economies of 

                Alteration

                A talk by Susan Allen Ford, editor of Persuasions and

                Persuasions On-Line 

When:    Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 1 pm EST
Where:   Online through Zoom, pre-registration required

NOTE:   This meeting is on the second Saturday!

Registration Required: Registration Link

PLEASE NOTE: If you registered for this event on December 1 or 2 please re-register. The registration form did not obtain your email address which we need to send the link for the meeting. If you are registering on December 3 or later just click on the Registration Form link and fill in the form.

Thank you

Speaker: Susan Allen Ford is Editor of Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line and Professor of English Emerita at Delta State University. She has published essays on Jane Austen and her contemporaries, detective fiction, and the Gothic, and is slowly working on a book on what Austen’s characters are reading.

Topic: “Just in a happy state of flounce”: Jane Austen's economies of alteration. Susan examines Austen’s interest in clothing, particularly in terms of buying, making and altering it and also how clothing defines people, taking on almost human characteristics.

Here is the link to the registration form

Registration Form

Liz Cooper on "Jane Austen: Working Woman"

Jane Austen's Home Office (1)

Event:   JASNA CWNY November Meeting

Topic:    Jane Austen: Working Woman

               "I must keep to my own style & go on in my own way"

               A talk by JASNA President Liz Philosophos Cooper

When:    Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 1 pm EST
Where:   Online through Zoom

Registration Required: Registration Link

Jane Austen wrote primarily about England's leisure class, but working people are always present in supporting roles. In Emma, Mrs. Goddard runs a boarding school for young ladies and Mrs. Ford needs to deal with indecisive customers like Harriet. In studying Jane Austen's gentry we might forget that Jane Austen was, herself, a working woman. She fully desired to earn a living from her writing. 

However, it was not easy for Jane Austen to succeed as a professional writer. Like so many working people today, she worked from home where she had to share both space and domestic duties with others. At least she did not have to spend her days on Zoom.

To learn more about what is was like for Jane Austen as a working woman, please join us (virtually) for our November meeting. JASNA President Liz Philosophos Cooper will speak via Zoom  on "Jane Austen: Working Woman"

(1) Photo credit: Pierre Terre, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13637088