Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries

FAIN: FS-50299-11

Mizzou (Columbia, MO 65211-3020)
Devoney K. Looser (Project Director: March 2011 to November 2014)

A five-week seminar for sixteen college and university faculty members to study the works of Jane Austen and other writers of her time.

This proposed 5-week seminar(June 18–July 20, 2012) sets out to demonstrate that new insights can be realized about Jane Austen when reading her closely alongside the once well-known—writers of her own time. Whether we are seeking to understand Austen’s fictional techniques, political views, religious beliefs, reception in her lifetime, or posthumous reputation, we stand to learn a great deal by reading her in newly emerging contexts. This seminar will have a two-pronged emphasis: 1) undertaking collective close reading and discussion of primary texts by Austen in tandem with those of her once-celebrated contemporaries and 2) providing tools for pursuing advanced study of Austen among the now-understudied authors of this era, using both digital and traditional archival research techniques. Seminar members will have the opportunity to make new discoveries about these writers and to advance their own independent research, editorial, pedagogical,or curatorial projects.