Welcome

This is an open invitation to deepen your pleasure in and enrich your enjoyment of Jane Austen: If you really love Jane Austen, consider joining JASNA (The Jane Austen Society of North America) and JASNA Massachusetts, a local Region of JASNA. We welcome all who enjoy Jane Austen's works. Our JASNA Massachusetts Region is one of the many Regions of the national organization of JASNA. We have many Austen scholars among our membership as well as those who simply enjoy reading Austen and sharing their pleasure with others.

We hold five events during our membership year: four regular meetings (September, November, March and May), plus a celebration of Jane Austen's birthday in December. These events usually consist of a talk or lecture lasting about an hour, followed by discussion and refreshments.

Please note that JASNA national membership does not include membership in the Massachusetts Region. JASNA Massachusetts dues are collected annually (September to August) in lieu of contributions at the door. To renew or start an annual membership, please return a check payable to JASNA-Mass for $15 (regular) or $7.50 (student) to Marianne Redmond, 198 Rock Island Road, Quincy, MA 02169.

All are welcome to pay their dues at the door. Those who are not members of JASNA Massachusetts can simply pay $5.00 for each lecture they attend.

We'd be very pleased to have you join us at our next meeting.

The steering committee is planning another enjoyable season for the upcoming year. The following events will all be held at Wheelock College, Brookline Campus 43 Hawes Street, Brookline, MA. John Wiltshire will address us on Sunday, Oct 2, 2011 at 2pm. John lives in Melbourne Australia, and has spent the last several weeks living at the Jane Austen Library in Chawton, England, as a visiting scholar. John Wiltshire is the author of Recreating Jane Austen and Jane Austen & The Body. His talk is titled Concealment In Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen's first book was published in 1811, two hundred years ago! Marcia Folsom, Professor of Literature at Wheelock College, Boston, will be the speaker on Sunday, November 13 at 2pm. Marcia's topic is First and Second: Sisters, Suitors, and Novels. Jane Austen: A Musical Birthday! Of course, we will once again celebrate Jane Austen's birthday with appropriate merriment. The date will be Sunday, December 11, 2011, at 3pm. We will enjoy a selection of music from Jane Austen's era, performed by Christine Vaulding, pianist, and Jessica Lupian, mezzo soprano. This will be followed by a champagne toast to Jane, and birthday cake. Test your knowledge of Sense and Sensibilty with our quiz! Prizes will be awarded. This special event is $5 for members of JASNA MA, and $10 for non-members. Alistair Duckworth will give a talk on Sunday, March 18, 2012, at 2pm. Alistair is the Avery Fund speaker for this season. Lauren Willig, author of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and the series of eight books following, will be our guest speaker on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 2pm. Lauren's topic is Austen's Accidental Afterlife: Jane and her Regency World in Modern Fiction. Lauren will talk about the ways in which Jane Austen and the world she writes about have been coopted and adapted, both in the Regency romance genre and in mainstream fiction; the various ways in which she and her era have been represented and misrepresented; and then, as a specific instance of this, her experiences trying to write Jane and her unfinished The Watsons into Lauren's novel Mischief of the Mistletoe and the challenges that presented. Wheelock's Brookline Campus is easily accessible. By subway: "C" line to Hawes Street (after St. Mary's Street) or "D" line to Longwood Avenue. Click here for driving directions. Click here to review the meetings that were held during the 2010 - 2011 season. JASNA JASNA's Annual General Meeting (AGM) takes place in the fall of each year in a different city in the United States or Canada. The AGM attracts about six hundred participants, bringing together scholars and lay readers of Austen to explore her life and works from multiple perspectives. Future AGM's New York City, NY October 5-7, 2012 Theme: Sex, Money, and Power in Jane Austen's Fiction Minneapolis, MN October 4-6, 2013 Theme: The 200th Anniversary of Pride & Prejudice Montréal, Québec, Canada, Oct. 10-12, 2014 Theme: Mansfield Park in Montréal: Contexts, Conventions and Controversies Louisville, KY USA, Oct. 9-11, 2015 Theme: "Living in Jane Austen's World" To learn more about JASNA, our parent organization, visit www.jasna.org.