Counting down

It’s fair to say that most of us apprehend Jane Austen by way of words. But for a few outliers, numbers may provide a way into her work. As we count down toward The Big Birthday next month, this week in Austen 250 celebrations offers something for both camps:

* For the linguistically inclined, the University of Western Australia, in Perth, is holding a mini-Austen conference next Monday, featuring an opportunity to view its library’s collection of Austen first editions.

Along with a talk about the holdings--“There is just an aura around these original editions,” English professor Ned Curthoys says in a university press release—the day will feature a panel discussion about Austen adaptations. The event, which can be attended either online or in person, is free, but registration is required.

* If you’re a math person—and plan to be in London on Thursday evening—you may prefer to drop in at a public lecture on “The Past and Future of Computational Jane Austen Studies,” given by Erik Ketzan, a lecturer in the Kings College London Department of Digital Humanities.

“Scholars have been analysing the texts of Jane Austen using code and computation since at least the late 1970’s,” the university’s website explains. “This public lecture revisits the various computational methods through which digital humanists have sought to interpret Austen’s texts and their effects upon readers.”

“One major topic that computation can still bring more insight to is Austen's style,” Ketzan says in a press release. “Computational methods could reveal even more ways, at the word and syntax level, that Austen's style innovated literary English.”

Ketzan’s talk is part of an Austen 250 program at King’s that includes a concert of period music, held last month, and a planned January talk on Austen’s popularity, featuring novelist Tessa Hadley and actor-writers Anni Domingo and Romola Garai.