Detours through the works of Jane Austen
Détours dans l’œuvre de Jane Austen
Published on Thursday, June 20, 2024
Abstract
This comparative literature conference devoted to Jane Austen will be an opportunity to undertake further excursions into the work of the famous novelist. Papers may draw parallels between Austen's novels and those of other authors from the long nineteenth century, take an interest in characters left out of the story, propose counterpoints for reading and analysis or even venture into the counter-fields of the work, in an attempt to understand what continues to fuel Austenmania today.
Announcement
Université Paris Nanterre / Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 3-4 April 2025
Organisation
Conference co-organised by Hélène Dubail and Amandine Lebarbier, Université Paris Nanterre, Centre de recherchers en littérature et poétique comparées
Argument
How often in conversation does Mr Collins feel compelled to quote Lady Catherine de Bourgh[1]? How many times does Mr Bingley show himself to be absolutely adorable, to the point of becoming the incarnation of the ideal brother-in-law[2]? And, above all, how many minutes in all does Mr Darcy spend gazing enigmatically at Elizabeth Bennet [3]? If many internet users are launching into this kind of calculation with video compilations, it is because Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, continues to enjoy cult status today. Since the novel was adapted by the BBC in 1995, the Jane Austen phenomenon has taken on exceptional proportions, and her work has seen numerous reprints, translations, adaptations, rewrites, and even the invention of more or less far-fetched sequels... The #Jane Austen is linked to millions of accounts on TikTok, and far exceeds other great names in world literature[4].
‘Jane Austen, superstar’[5]? A symposium on the bicentenary of her death in 2017 noted this aspect of Austen’s literary legacy and the phenomenon has continued to grow ever since. How has this come about? How did the woman whose humdrum life we have been happy to observe become such a cross-generational popular icon, a veritable commercial cultural product in the form of films, series, web-series, fanzines, comics and other derivative objects? Why is her work so fascinating today? Is this successful reception a worldwide phenomenon, or is it confined to specific geographical and cultural areas?
Spending time exploring the writings of Jane Austen represents an opportunity to undertake further excursions into the work of this famous novelist. Focusing on characters who have been left out, proposing counterpoints for reading and analysis, or even venturing into the counter-fields of Austen’s work in an attempt to understand what continues to fuel Austenmania today, are all possible directions to take.
We welcome proposals for papers focusing on one or more of Jane Austen's novels; we would particularly like to see a comparative approach at the heart of the conference. Participants could, for example, draw parallels between Austen’s novels and those of other authors from the long nineteenth century, such as George Sand, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Louisa May Alcott and Virginia Woolf.
Proposals for papers may address one or more of the following themes, without necessarily being limited to them:
New escapes
How are Jane Austen's works currently being read? How are they being revisited? The relatively contained extent of the Austenian corpus allows the possibility of considering her novels in their entirety. Cross-disciplinary papers on the work as a whole will therefore be particularly welcome, focusing either on broad themes or on specific scenes or motifs. Papers can consider, for example, the topos of the marriage proposal, the role reserved for music, variations on the possibilities of love fiction, such as love at first sight or instant mutual detestation, the linear love story or the novel of second chances (Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility come to mind here).
Shadow characters
We also suggest reading Jane Austen's works while reserving a place for the shadowy characters who populate her world. Alongside the cult couples, there are often secondary pairings, whose trajectories tell a different story of marriage. Let's set off in search of all these discreet characters, without whom the storylines could not follow their course. Let's take a look at the parallel narratives of hidden heroines as represented by Charlotte Lucas and Georgiana Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice: not seeing the wood for the trees?
Discovering the most secret corners of Pemberley, strolling through the gardens with Elizabeth: that's what Estelle Bana promised when she wrote Pride and Pemberley[6], a five-part historical romance that is presented as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, which left, and continues to leave, readers at the very point when the romance between the two principal characters bursts into life.
How and why did this work become both the author's best-known work and a cult work of world literature? Has focusing on a single work altered or hindered the reception of Austen’s other writings? And in recent years, particularly through the television and film adaptations that have been made of it, has the novel Persuasion come to rival Pride and Prejudice?
Writing ‘in the intervals of pies and pudding’[7]: the image of Jane Austen
While her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen made the novelist famous in 1870, Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own (1929) brought to light the material conditions of her writing helping to forge the image of an author who was forced to conceal her manuscripts. What images do more recent biographies and biopics (Becoming Jane, Miss Austen Regrets, etc.) paint of this woman artist? The dominant image often seems to be of an author whose love life was disappointing, whose domestic life was routine, and who found an escape in writing. This line of thought could be enriched by a comparative study of other works belonging to the genre of the biography/biopic of women as creative artists, and, in particular, of women as painters, a subject which has enjoyed a certain success since the 2000s.
Fetishisation of the book as object and derivative products
Jane Austen is one of those writers whose works are regularly republished, whether this involves a new translation or the production of beautiful books, such as those recently offered by Hauteville Classiques, with their flowery covers. Alongside these new, precious, collectable editions, our passion for Jane Austen also extends to cookbooks (Jane Austen’s Table by Robert Tuesley Anderson) and encyclopaedias (L'Encyclopédie visuelle by Claire Saim and Gwen Giret, Le Musée imaginaire de Jane Austen by Fabrice Colin and Nathalie Novi), which meet the growing demand from fans to get ever closer to the world of their beloved novelist. What editorial choices govern the creation of these new editions and the selection of books based on the work to be offered to readers? How can we think about this relationship of fascination and fetishisation, in which the book as object plays an essential role?
In the footsteps of Jane Austen
‘Walking in the footsteps of Pride and Prejudice’[8], visiting the Jane Austen Centre, strolling through the streets of Bath and soon believing yourself to be back in the Regency era: literary tourism offers many ways of prolonging the pleasure of reading by allowing us to follow in the footsteps of the novelist or of her greatest heroines. But you do not have to have read Jane Austen's novels to enjoy wandering around these places that have become mythical in other ways. The many contemporary adaptations and rewritings (see, for example, the success of the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) open up new, indirect ways of accessing literature. Jane Austen is also an author who can be approached through the taking of less well-trodden paths. What are we to make of this derivative reception, informed by other media? Papers might examine the special status that Jane Austen has today as a novelist who is sometimes separated from her texts, leaving behind only traces of them.
Submission guidelines
Proposals for papers (approximately 400 words, in French or English), accompanied by three to five key words and a bio-bibliography, should be sent to the following two addresses: a.lebarbi@parisnanterre.fr and helene.dubail@gmail.com
by 15 September 2024.
Bibliography
ALEXANDER Christine et McMASTER Juliet, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
AUSTEN-LEIGH, James Edward, A Memoir of Jane Austen by her Nephew J. E. Austen Leigh, Londres, Richard Bentley and Son, 1871.
Austen Power : (re)lire Jane Austen, Orsay, Editions Baribal, 2023.
BIRTWISTLE, Sue et CONKLIN, Susie, The Making-of Pride and Prejudice, Londres, Penguin Books / BBC Books, 1995.
DEMIR, Sophie, Jane Austen, une poétique du différend, PUR, 2015.
FERGUSON, Moira, "Mansfield Park, Slavery, Colonialism, and Gender", Oxford Literary Review 13, 1991, p. 118-139.
GAY Penny, Jane Austen and the Theatre, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
GOODMAN, Anaïs, « Fortunes télévisuelles et transmédiatiques de Jane Austen », Société des études romantiques et dix-neuviémistes. Consulté le 3 juin 2024, à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/u0ms
GRANGE, Jérémie, La Destruction des genres. Jane Austen et Madame d’Epinay, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2014.
GUBAR Susan et GILBERT Sandra, The Madwoman in the Attic : The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984.
GUERITAULT, Aude, ”Jane Austen, de romancière à idole des réseaux sociaux, France culture, 5 mai 2023, “https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/jane-austen-de-romanciere-a-idole-des-reseaux-sociaux-9428995
JENKYNS, Richard, A Fine Brush on Ivory : An Appreciation of Jane Austen, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
KING, Noel J., “Jane Austen in France”, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Jun., 1953, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jun., 1953), pp. 1-26.
KRAMP, Michael (dir.), Jane Austen and Critical Theory, Londres, Routledge, 2021.
LANE, Maggie, Jane Austen and Food, Londres, The Hambledon Press, 1995.
LAUBER, John, “Jane Austen's Fools”, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 , Autumn, 1974, Vol. 14, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1974), pp. 511-524.
LE FAYE, Deirdre, Jane Austen. The World of her Novels, Londres, Frances Lincoln, 2002.
LITZ, A. Walton, “Recollecting Jane Austen”, Critical Inquiry , Mar., 1975, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 669-682.
LYNCH, Deirdre (dir.), Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000.
MANDALL, Anthony et SOUTHAM, Brian (dir.), The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
MASSEI-CHAMAYOU, Marie-Laure, La Représentation de l'argent dans les romans de Jane Austen : L'être et l'avoir, Paris, L'Harmattan, coll. « Des idées et des femmes », 2012.
NORMANDIN, Shawn, Jane Austen and Literary Theory, Londres, Routledge, 2022.
Pourquoi Jane Austen est la meilleure?, Paris, Revue des deux mondes, no 5, mai 2013.
RAVEN, James, The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007.
RIHOIT, Catherine, Jane Austen, un cœur rebelle, Paris, Écriture, 2018.
SØRBØ, Marie N., Irony and Idyll. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park on Screen, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2014.
SPOONER, Emma, “Touring With Jane Austen”, Critical Survey , 2014, Vol. 26, N° 1, pp. 42-58.
TODD, Janet M., Jane Austen In Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
TOMALIN, Claire, Jane Austen : passions discrètes, trad. Jacqueline Gouirand-Rousselon et Christiane Bernard, Paris, Autrement, 2008.
TREMBLEY, Aurélie, Jane Austen ou la déchirure, Saint-Martin-D’Hères, UGA Editions, 2024.
TROOST, Linda et GREENFIELD, Sayre (dir.), Jane Austen in Hollywood, Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.
TRUNEL, Lucile, Les Éditions françaises de Jane Austen, 1815-2007 : l'apport de l'histoire éditoriale à la compréhension de la réception de l'auteur en France, Paris, H. Champion, coll. « Bibliothèque de littérature générale et comparée », 2010.
WILTSHIRE, John, Recreating Jane Austen, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Notes
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42My9WgPMr8
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQ8f3uijoo
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsb9cE2sPYs
[4] GUERITAULT, Aude, ”Jane Austen, de romancière à idole des réseaux sociaux, France culture, 5 mai 2023, “https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/jane-austen-de-romanciere-a-idole-des-reseaux-sociaux-9428995
[5] Jane Austen Superstar. Readership, Translation & Criticism in the 21st century (Lisbonne) (fabula.org)
[6] BANA, Estelle, Orgueil et Pemberley, en cinq épisodes, format Kindle, 2022-2023.
[7] CHERSTERTON, G.K., “Preface” in Jane Austen, Love and Freindship, and other early works, Chatto & Windus, 1922, p.xv.
Subjects
- Representation (Main category)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Sunday, September 15, 2024
Keywords
- Jane Austen, littérature comparée, fiction, adaptation
Contact(s)
- Amandine Lebarbier
courriel : a [dot] lebarbi [at] parisnanterre [dot] fr - Hélène Dubail
courriel : helene [dot] dubail [at] gmail [dot] com
Information source
- Hélène Dubail
courriel : helene [dot] dubail [at] gmail [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Detours through the works of Jane Austen », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, June 20, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/11v6e
