Recent Event Highlights

Our June 2019 event at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens covered the theme “It’s All Relative: Relationships in Austen,” with mother-son duo Deborah Knuth Klenck and Ted Scheinman discussing the role of Austen’s maternal characters in the education of their children, followed by UCLA Emeritus Professor Charles Lynn Batten on marital relationships in Austen.

Emma Approved Executive Producer Bernie Su, Joanna Sotomura (Emma Woodhouse), Brent Bailey (Alex Knightley), Dayeanne Hutton (Harriet Smith) and James Brent Isaacs (Robert “BMart” Martin) spoke at the Spring 2016 meeting.

Author Collins Hemingway spoke on “Persuasion and the Art and Science of Austen’s Fiction” to a capacity crowd at the Fall 2018 meeting.

JASNA Southwest members had the opportunity to attend sneak preview screenings of Whit Stillman’s 2016 film Love and Friendship, based on Austen’s Lady Susan.

Our December 2018 event at Sony Pictures Studio on “Jane Austen in Hollywood” included presentations by Austen scholars Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield and fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell and a moderated conversation with Ashley Clements of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

“Historical, Cultural and Social Links from Jane Austen to Downton Abbey” was the theme of the Spring 2017 illustrated presentation by DiAnn Ellis.

“WWJD: Who Would Jane Date?” was the subject of a lively and humorous presentation by Beth Parker on how Austen might approach dating today.

Each spring, JASNA Southwest participates in the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, with a booth that draws nearly 2,000 visitors.

Jan Fahey and Terry Ryan explored the history of bathing, housekeeping and home remedies during the Regency era in “Spring Cleaning at Chawton” at our Spring 2018 meeting.

Robert Rodi discussed his motivation and efforts to create his Bitch in a Bonnet blog and books, as well as his full-length comedy of manners based on Austen’s short story Edgar and Emma, at the Fall 2016 meeting.

Frequent JASNA AGM speaker and founder of Juvenilia Press Juliet McMaster spoke and signed books at the Spring 2016 meeting.

We hold our events at a variety of locations throughout our widespread region, and feature meals ranging from afternoon teas to sit-down or boxed lunches.
Following are just a few highlights of recent JASNA Southwest meetings. For detailed recaps, photos, audio and video, check out our event archive.
- Andrew Davies, screenwriter of the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries with Colin Firth, Sense and Sensibility (2008), Northanger Abbey (2007), Emma (1996), War and Peace (2016), the original House of Cards and numerous acclaimed adaptations of such authors as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot—and the completion of Austen’s Sanditon, an eight-part miniseries airing in 2020
- “Jane Austen in Hollywood,” including a day at Sony Pictures Studio with Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield (editors of Jane Austen in Hollywood) on “The Unfilmable Jane Austen: The Case of Northanger Abbey,” “The Modern Elizabeth Bennet: A Conversation with Ashley Clements, star of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) and “Pride and Prejudice and Pelisses: Costuming Jane Austen,” with fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell
- Austen scholars Janine Barchas and Devoney Looser sharing “What’s Next in Jane Austen?”—a day including the official launch of their 2020 issue of the journal Texas Studies in Literature and Language with the same theme, as well as discussions of their latest works, The Lost Books of Jane Austen (Barchas) and The Daily Jane Austen (Looser), plus a Regency photo booth, JASNA Southwest’s 40th anniversary celebration and a trivia contest
- “It’s All Relative: Relationships in Austen,” with attendees having the opportunity to explore on their own or take docent-led tours at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens after hearing presentations from mother-son duo Deborah Knuth Klenck (an Austen scholar) and Ted Scheinman (author of Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan) as well as UCLA Emeritus Professor Charles Lynn Batten, who discussed marital relationships in Austen’s novels
- “Jane Austen Meets Mary Shelley,” with talks by John Kessel (author of Pride and Prometheus, a mashup of Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein), UCLA Emeritus Distinguished Research Professor Anne Mellor (who spoke on the topic of “Mothering Monsters: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Genetic Engineering”) and Victoria Shorr (author of Midnight: Three Women at the Hour of Reckoning)
- “200 Years of Persuasion,” with author Collins Hemingway’s presentation on “Persuasion and the Art and Science of Austen’s Fiction” and Austen scholar Lynda Hall and author Erika Kotite on “A Room of Anne’s Own: Homelessness and Female Spaces in Persuasion“
- “Spring Cleaning at Chawton,” a down-and-dirty look at the history of bathing, housekeeping and home remedies during the Regency era, with JASNA Southwest board members Jan Fahey and Terry Ryan
- WWJD: Who Would Jane Date?, humorous insights on how Austen would approach online dating
- “From Hampshire to Hollywood,” featuring the use of Austen’s novels and their film adaptations to teach college students
- What Jane Saw creator Janine Barchas’ talk on Will and Jane, following the exhibition “Will and Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity,” which she co-curated for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
- A sneak preview of Pride and Prejudice the Musical
- Kate Rorrick and Jay Bushman, the creative team behind Pemberley Digital and the Emmy Award-winning web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
- Robert Rodi, author of Edgar and Emma (which takes the three-page story Austen wrote in her teens and expands it into a full-length comedy of manners) and the Bitch in a Bonnet blog and books on Austen’s novels
- Juvenilia Press founder and renowned 19th century English literary scholar Juliet McMaster on the Austen family’s Naval service and the female experience at sea
- The cast and creative team behind the digital series Emma Approved
- A two-day super-regional conference on “Sense and Sensibility: Jane Austen’s Problem Child?” that included visiting the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, and with a talk by Virginia Tech Professor Peter Graham, author of Jane Austen & Charles Darwin: Naturalists and Novelists, about how nature and nurture interact in the character development of sibling groups in Sense and Sensibility
- A performance by Jane Austen Unscripted
- “In the Garden with Fanny Price,” including a keynote address by Kim Wilson, author of In the Garden with Jane Austen, UCLA Professor Anne Mellor on “Fanny Price and Slavery” and a docent-led tour of the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden
- “Pride and Prejudice: Characters We Love to Hate,” including a presentation by Sue Forgue, creator of The Regency Encyclopedia, that used contemporaneous prints and panels from the 1813 Horwood’s Map of London to locate Wickham and Lydia’s London hiding place
- UCLA Professor Michael Suk-Young Chwe on his book Jane Austen, Game Theorist

A talk by Janine Barchas on the digital exhibit What Jane Saw and the Will & Jane exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library was a highlight of the Winter 2016 meeting.

The Spring 2016 meeting was held aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

“What Would Elizabeth Bennet Do?” when it comes to dating and modern life was a topic at the Winter 2015 meeting.

JASNA Southwest enjoyed a preview performance of songs and scenes from the new Pride and Prejudice musical at the Spring 2015 meeting.

The cast of Jane Austen, Unscripted has performed for JASNA Southwest meetings on more than one occasion.

The Winter 2014 meeting included a performance led by Diana Birchall and Syrie James featuring a backstage look at what really happened during the rehearsal of Lovers’ Vows at Mansfield Park.