Jane Austen's Desk: The Prototype

FAIN: MT-290282-23

Jane Austen Summer Program, Inc. (Chapel Hill, NC 27514-2134)
Inger S. B. Brodey (Project Director: June 2022 to present)

Prototyping of an interactive platform that contextualizes Jane Austen’s life, worldview, and works through personal artifacts, novels, and archival documents.

We are applying for an NEH “Digital Projects for the Public - Prototyping” award for $100,000 to provide start-up funding for creating a functioning prototype of “Jane Austen’s Desk” (JAD), a public-facing website that will become a space for scholars, fans, and general readers around the world to explore and learn, as well as connect and collaborate. JAD will simulate Jane Austen’s historical workspace, using Austen’s writing table and traveling writing desk as a conceit for hosting historical, musical, literary, material culture, and philosophical sources in as interactive a manner as possible. Attracting a wide audience, JAD will foreground Austen's active and multi-faceted composition process in the Spring of 1813, when Austen has just published Pride and Prejudice and is composing Mansfield Park. The project will highlight Austen's vicarious travel, particularly via her brothers in the West Indies and elsewhere; her varied reading; and her views on abolition of the slave trade.

Associated Products

Jane Austen's Desk (Web Resource)
Title: Jane Austen's Desk
Author: Sarah Schaefer Walton
Author: Inger S. B. Brodey
Abstract: Jane Austen's Desk provides users with a window into Austen's world and a space for scholars, fans, and general readers around the world to explore and learn, as well as connect and collaborate. This is an interpretive vision of Austens writing space and traveling desk, which works as a hub for hosting historical, musical, literary, material culture, and philosophical sources in as interactive a manner as possible. The prototype for this website simulates Jane Austen's imaginative world and network of influences as of Tuesday, March 30, 1813. Our features and content underscore her composition process, as she had just published Pride and Prejudice and was composing Mansfield Park. Focusing on Mansfield Park also enables us to engage with important contemporary issues, particularly issues surrounding female authorship and mobility, the transatlantic slave trade and the Austen family's disputed role in it, and the family involvement in the War of 1812. Jane Austen's Desk was funded by two grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities Digital Projects for the Public. This prototype launched in the spring of 2024.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: http://beta.janeaustensdesk.org

Jane Austen's Desk (Web Resource)
Title: Jane Austen's Desk
Author: Inger Brodey
Author: Sarah Walton
Author: Sheila Kindred Johnson
Author: Lizzy Dunford
Author: Susan Allen Ford
Abstract: “Jane Austen’s Desk” (JAD) is a public-facing website that provides users with a window into Austen’s world and allows scholars, fans, and general readers around the world to explore and learn. Funding from the NEH supported the development of a prototype and allowed our team to build a beta version of this site simulating Jane Austen’s historical workspace by using Austen’s writing table and traveling writing desk as hubs for hosting historical, musical, literary, material culture, and philosophical sources in as interactive a manner as possible. “Jane Austen’s Desk” foregrounds Austen as an author and artist: JAD pilots features and content that underscore her composition process, as evidenced in the Spring of 1813, when Austen had just published Pride and Prejudice and was composing Mansfield Park. Our content highlights Austen's complex family life, her productivity, and her connection to national and world events. It also explores the contrasting themes in her novels, from the "light and bright" Pride and Prejudice to the darker, philosophical Mansfield Park. Austen's brothers' naval experiences, particularly in the West Indies and the Americas, illustrate her family's global reach and influence. By examining Austen's letters and the political allusions in her works, our project aims to convey her global consciousness, providing a nuanced understanding of her place in the historical and literary landscape.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: http://beta.janeaustensdesk.org
Primary URL Description: This is the access point to the prototype website. The main url will be www.janeaustensdesk.org, after the next stage of work.

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