Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities

Of all Austen’s writings, Emma is the most concerned with the practice and difficulties of living in community. The novel is set in Highbury, “the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,” and the heroine, whose perspective we follow throughout the narrative, lives both a privileged life and a rather static life. The community of Highbury can appear small, contained, and content, bu...

In this special episode of Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities, Samantha Holland speaks about the Moore family, an Australia family with a longstanding affinity for Jane Austen. Frances, Natalie, Hannah, and Teresa are four women across three generations, who share a special relationship with Austen, her works, and her legacy. Through their conversations about characters like Mrs. Bennet...

Resiliency has become one of the most popular concepts within academic circles over the past decade or so. Scholars from various disciplines, including Engineering, Health, Politics, Religion, Biology, and Education have adopted the ideas of resilience and resiliency to explain the ways in which institutions, technologies, communities, and individuals might rebound from hardship, recover from stre...

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most beloved novels in the English language--and one of the most popular love stories in the world. It is also a great story of change in which Austen details prominent cultural changes, characters discuss important changes, and the hero and heroine learn to change their minds. Change can be hard, transformative, and frustrating; it can also usher in...

In Episode IV of Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities, I talk with writers, scholars, and artists as we discuss how Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility models a vital humanities experience: the messiness of human relationships. We think through how Austen’s first published novel helps us to ask questions about, build connections between, and precisely observe the various messes of our live...

In this episode, I discuss the first of what I am treating as a series of humanities experiences that Jane Austen’s novels and ideas helps us understand and appreciate: the integral role of ignorance in the knowledge-acquisition process. I consider Northanger Abbey and explore how Austen’s first completed novel dramatizes various ways in which we learn, come to knowledge, and recognize the limitat...

In this brief podcast episode, Laura Piani and I discuss her new film Jane Austen Wrecked My Life , Piani's feature debut as a writer and director. We discuss the various ways in which Austen's life and works have inspired Piani, the urgency of writing and literature, and the need to return to our ruins.

In this second episode of Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities, I consider the distinctive cultural status of Jane Austen and reflect on how this distinctive status has allowed Austen to function, operate, and be used in diverse ways and in diverse public communities around the world. I speak with various scholars, writers, and artists, including the first person who taught Austen to me: D...

The conditions of the humanities in institutions of higher learning seem to be dire and critical. Why is this so? What has happened? And why do we keep talking about a "crisis" in or of the humanities. And what in the world does the beloved author, Jane Austen, have to do with any of this. Michael Kramp, professor of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, considers these questions and many...

Two of the universal truths of the past fifty years are the enduring popularity of Jane Austen and the persistent refrain of a "crisis of the humanities." In this preview episode, Prof. Michael Kramp ( dmk209@lehigh.edu ) discusses how the popularity, versatility, and malleable authority of Austen can serve as a valuable tool for discussing the importance of the humanities with diverse public audi...