Hear Jocelyn in conversation with Jesse Mulligan on Radio New Zealand’s Afternoons show on the topic of Austen adaptations, specifically in relation to the news that Eleanor Catton has written the screenplay of the 2020 Emma film.
The Jane Austen Society of North America have their AGM in a few days time – Jocelyn Harris will be speaking as the Carol Medine Moss Keynote Speaker, her topic being “Magnificent Miss Morland“. Here is the abstract of her talk: Jocelyn Harris, professor emerita at the University of Otago, New Zealand, is well-known […]
In her latest book on Jane Austen, Professor Jocelyn Harris argues that she was “a satirist, a celebrity watcher, and a keen political observer”. Come along to the “Great House” for an afternoon talk by Professor Harris on Austen. Tickets: £15, Friends and members of the Burney Society: £12. Includes tea/coffee and cake. Talk starts […]
Recently, renowned New Zealand writer Fiona Farrell gave the University of Auckland’s lecture at the 2018 Auckland Writers Festival, speaking on the political in literature, sometimes where we least expect it. You can read her fiery, wide-ranging and compelling lecture here, as well as listen to it via podcast. Farrell mentioned Satire, Celebrity and Politics […]
What would Jane Austen say about Donald Trump? Easy to answer, because she had seen it all before. A Regency girl in a golden age of satire, she attacked the Prince of Wales for his much-lampooned appearance, his lewdness, his licentiousness, his instability, his outrageous spending, his fondness for over-the-top building ventures, his implicit treason, […]
“When once we are buried you think we are dead / But behold me Immortal,” declares St. Swithin—or perhaps Jane Austen herself—in “Venta,” a satiric poem written on July 15, 1817, three days before she died (Minor Works 452). Immortal indeed, for new resources such as databases of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century newspapers and journals, digitized manuscripts, […]
Jocelyn Harris: #Austen #satire #celebrity #politics to packed room in talk filled w/revelations & laughter #asecs17 pic.twitter.com/LWZIGmcNmX — Devoney Looser (@devoneylooser) March 31, 2017
To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, the Times Literary Supplement asked me, “What does Jane Austen mean to you?” On July 19, 2017, I was delighted to be in the company of––among others––Melvyn Bragg, Paula Byrne, Amit Chaudhuri, Deirdre Le Faye, Claire Harman, Claudia L. Johnson, Devoney Looser, Pat Rogers, Patrica Rozema, […]
Jane Austen’s final, unfinished, novel Sanditon depicts hypochondria, property speculation, and consumerism. The University of Otago, Medical Humanities blog Corpus recently featured an essay I wrote investigating the satire Austen employs in this work. Between 27 January and 18 March 1817, Jane Austen wrote her final, unfinished, novel Sanditon, meaning a town built upon sand. […]
Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen, 2017. Order Now available in hardback and paperback. Also available from Jane Austen Books, Bucknell University Press, University Book Shop and other usual online book retailers. In Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen, Jocelyn Harris argues that Jane Austen was a satirist, a celebrity-watcher, and a keen […]
Reading and dramatizing Jane Austen makes her even funnier and more revealing. Jocelyn and Terry MacTavish have presented Jane Austen readings in Dunedin at the Globe Theatre, the Public Art Gallery, and the Savoy restaurant, on such topics as “Women Behaving Badly in Jane Austen,” “Jane Austen and Fashion,” and “Women Chasing Men in Jane […]
Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison. 3 parts. London: Oxford University Press. Repr. 1986 (pbk), 2001. Facsimile reprint available from the University of Otago. The seven-volume Grandison was immensely popular when first published in 1753-54, and highly influential for subsequent generations of writers before it fell into neglect and even derision. This edition […]
Samuel Richardson. Cambridge: CUP. Repr. 2009 and on demand. This book contributed largely to the Richardson “renaissance,” the reappraisal of his novels as the most remarkable and influential of the eighteenth century. As an outsider, Richardson found common cause with women, realising that the relationship between men and women is as politically charged as that […]
Jane Austen’s Art of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Repr. 2003 and on demand. Buy Online: Jane Austen Books. Buy Online: Cambridge University Press.
