There is joy in Janeite-ville this week: the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America – the JASNA AGM – kicks off today in Minneapolis!
I attended my first AGM in Philadelphia in 1983, four years after JASNA’s founding, when I was a college freshman and the whole affair was far smaller and more sedate.
This year’s AGM (theme: “Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. . . Timeless”) will welcome seven hundred and fifty Janeites for a packed four days of lectures, tours, dance lessons, craft workshops and special events – everything from a Regency fashion show to a Minneapolis pub crawl.
The whole shebang culminates in Saturday night’s banquet and ball, which many Janeites attend in Regency costume. (I must confess that I’m especially looking forward to the Sunday brunch event, a panel on the fabulous Lizzie Bennet Diaries.)
Like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I must have my share in the conversation. I’ll be talking about and signing Among the Janeites at the University of Minnesota’s book store at 4 pm today (not an AGM event, but if you’re in the neighborhood. . .) and then signing again during the AGM’s mass author event on Friday night from 6 to 7:30 pm.
On Saturday, I also have the honor of introducing breakout speaker Emily Auerbach, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who is the author of Searching for Jane Austen, which challenges the stereotype of Austen as a sweet maiden aunt penning decorous domestic dramas.
The JASNA AGM is criminally fun. Hope to see you there!