Douglas Murray and Rachel DeVore Fogarty Discuss New Opera: "Persuasion"

Austen fans will be glad to know that as part of Belmont University's annual Fall Symposium, two Belmont professors will discuss their collaboration in shaping a new opera from Austen's novel Persuasion.  Austen's final novel, Persuasion (1817), depicts a culture clash between two communities: the aristocracy and the new meritocracy of the British Navy. The novel's heroine, Anne Elliot, is caught between these two communities: a world dying and one waiting to be born. On Saturday, October 30, Douglas Murray and Rachel DeVore Fogarty will discuss how they will present these communities in their opera in progress.  This program will be held from 3:00-4:00 pm in the Neely Black and White Dining Room (First floor, in the building contiguous to the Belmont Mansion, to the East)

For more information on all the Belmont Symposium sessions, go to:

http://www.belmont.edu/cas/pdf/2010_humanities_symposium_mailer.pdf

"Pride and Prejudice" at Vanderbilt

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen premieres at Neely Auditorium at Vanderbilt University for a one-week run on Oct. 7.

Jane Austen’s beloved novel, adapted by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan, is transformed for the stage in this acclaimed adaptation.  The world of romantic complications takes center stage as the lively heroine Elizabeth Bennett and the high-born, handsome Mr. Darcy dance their way to comic completion.




“What makes Austen still compelling in this day and age? To this question one can only point to the obvious: love never goes out of style and, despite the difficulty of present times, we still yearn to believe that love is possible even in the midst of seemingly insurmountable circumstances,” says Terryl Hallquist, director of Pride and Prejudice and associate professor of theatre.  “And, like it or not, the human condition is fraught with personal prides and prejudices.  Whether we recognize them and grow beyond them is a pursuit worthy of our constant study and attention.”



Pride and Prejudice will be performed at 8 p.m. on Oct. 7, 8 and 9 and at 2 p.m. on Oct. 9 and 10.  Admission is $10 for the general public, $7 for graduate and professional students and free for undergraduates with Vanderbilt identification.  Tickets may be reserved by calling (615) 322-2404.

Christine Shih Leads October JASNA Program

Chrisitine Shih at Chawton House Library last July for the "New Directions in Austen Studies" Conference

Program:  "Monsters: Perspectives of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe and Emily Bronte"

Presenter:  Christine Shih

Date and Time:  Sunday October 17 from 2:00-4:00 pm

Location:  Home of Judy Isaac, 1241 Cliftee Drive, Brentwood, TN

Attendees are encouraged to bring desserts, fruit, scones, tea sandwiches, etc. for High Tea beginning at 2:00 pm

Middle Tennessee JASNA Members will get a special "preview" on October 17 of a paper that Christine Shih has been asked to present at JASNA's Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Portland, Oregon. The following is a synopsis of Christine's paper entitled "Monsters: Perspectives of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe and Emily Bronte": 
 

"This essay concentrates on the shared experiences of the three authors Austen, Radcliffe and Emily Bronte. The “monster within their respective creations of Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho and Wuthering Heights was found within each author’s individual family life and brought to the novel with empirically consistent use of characterization. The characters of General Tilney, Signora Laurentini and Heathcliff, along with others, are brought together to describe the striking behavioral interactions with the author and the parental figures in their home life. A larger implication is drawn from the association of these works with many other novels from the eighteenth century to today, with the connection existing in each work to characterizations that describe Borderline Personality Disorder. I utilize an interdisciplinary approach to this essay by drawing from studies in medicine/nursing, diagnostics, philosophy, literature, psychology/psychotherapy and the discipline of parenting."

"Someone's Been Messing with Fanny"

"Ever wondered what it would have been like if Jane Austen had turned her hand to murder?

Murder at Mansfield Park takes Austen’s masterpiece and turns it into a riveting murder story worthy of PD James or Agatha Christie. Just as in many classic English detective mysteries, this new novel opens with a group of characters in a country house setting, with passions running high, and simmering tensions beneath the elegant Regency surface. The arrival of the handsome and debonair Henry Crawford and his sister forces these tensions into the open, and sparks a chain of events that leads inexorably to violence and death.

Beautifully written, with an absolute faithfulness to the language in use at the time, Murder at Mansfield Park is both a good old-fashioned murder mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page, and a sparklingly clever inversion of the original, which goes to the heart of many of the questions raised by Jane Austen’s text. Austen’s Mansfield Park is radically different from any of her other works, and much of the pleasure of Lynn Shepherd’s novel lies in the way it takes the characters and episodes in the original, and turns them into a lighter, sharper, and more playful book, with a new heroine at its centre – a heroine who owes far more to the lively and spirited Elizabeth Bennet, than the dreary and insipid Fanny Price.

A treat for Austen lovers and murder mystery aficionados alike."--Taken from Lynn Shepherd's Home Page.

Beth Patillo Enjoys a Jane Austen Walking Vacation

Walking tours have been popular for many years.  However "literary walking tours" seem to be "reaching their stride."  Local Nashville author Beth Patillo was recently interviewed  about her recent Jane Austen walking vacation by Julie Johnson, U.S. Operations Manager of The Wayfarers travel company.  Ms. Patillo discovered The Wayfarers travel company online when she was looking for Bronte-related tours. She missed the Bronte tour, but managed to get a place on the Austen tour!

For more information about Ms. Patillo's trip click here.