Janeites/Anti-Janeites 6/14

The Line of Thought

. . . to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.

--Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Eighty years on

The year that began yesterday will not bring us any important Jane Austen anniversaries: The bicentenaries of her death and of the...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 2, 2020

Fruitcake

As the holidays approach, you may be bracing for the arrival of that winter perennial, the fruitcake -- baked months earlier, soaked in...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 9, 2019

Strange bedfellows

By now, we’ve gotten used to seeing Jane Austen in rather. . . um . . . interesting company. She’s been paired with zombies and sea...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 4, 2019

Forty years and counting

It’s that time again, Janeites: The Jane Austen Society of North America is holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) over the next four...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 2, 2019

Keeping up with the Janeites

I don’t speak Kardashian. I have trouble distinguishing among the K-named females of the clan, disentangling the one who married Kanye...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 29, 2019

Janeite on the Potomac, Part II

Bipartisanship is sadly rare in Washington these days, so it’s refreshing to find one instance of agreement across the aisle, even in...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 25, 2019

Pictures at an exhibition

Is Michelle Obama a Janeite? As far as I’m aware, no documentation exists to settle the question either way. But circumstantial evidence...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 15, 2019

A Janeite in STEM

All the talk these days about the decline of the humanities can be pretty depressing for us English-major types, who persist in believing...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 1, 2019

Color-coordinated Austen

It’s been clear for a while now that Jane Austen has evolved from revered writer into lifestyle brand: FamousJane, bringing you Classy...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 25, 2019

Janeite on the Potomac

In the most famous passage of perhaps the most famous essay ever written about Jane Austen, the psychologist and literary critic D.W....

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 18, 2019

Popping the question

According to my parents, one of the most important promises they made to each other upon their marriage was this one: no surprise...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 7, 2019

Beach reading

It’s always encouraging when excellent contemporary writers turn out to have great taste in literature (i.e., taste that agrees with my...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 10, 2019