Hawai‘i Regional Coordinator Cheryl Ernst (in back row) attended the JASNA’s 2023 Annual General Meeting in Denver. She joined fellow regional coordinators at a reception hosted by JASNA President Mary Mintz (far right) and had a ball with frequent Hawai‘i Zoom attendees Jeanne Talbot and Kirk Companion.
Entertainment included a Q&A session with Adrian Lukis following a showing of his recorded one-man show Being Mr. Wickham (which imagines the handsome Pride and Prejudice rogue at 60); a marvelous musical performance of songs from Jane Austen’s personal music collection performed and enacted in period costume; and a comic drama distilling romantic highlights from the six major novels in 48 minutes narrated by author Syrie James as a cheeky Jane Austen.
Breakout sessions covered topics ranging from Regency etiquette, attire, carriages and divorce, to screen adaptations and modern translations. Discussions included:
• the difference between reading as escape versus escapism. (Escape is about the possibility of something better; P&P is utopian in that it is about a possible world, argued Princeton’s Claudia Johnson).
• influences of Samuel Richardson and Mary Wolstencroft.
• use of idiolect to define characters (e.g., expressions like “Lord” “lah” and even “fun” were quite the slang terms of the day, hence their use by Lydia Bennet).
• the number of times language of the (legal) court appear in P&P (e.g., deliberation, acquit, suspicion, justice, motive, offense, judgement, pardon, revenge, just, impartial, malicious, condemn, and Elizabeth’s challenge of “why was he to be the judge?”).
Recordings of many sessions will be available to members on the JASNA once speaker permissions are secured.
jasnahawaii.org 