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The Thing About Austen

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Ep74: The Thing About Marianne's Washing

9/7/2023

 
Miss Steele has questions about Marianne's washing, and we are here to answer them. This episode we air some dirty laundry and get into the sudsy specifics of how Jane Austen and her contemporaries went about obtaining clean clothes in an era before washers and dryers. 

Selected Sources
  • Austen, Jane. “Autograph Memorandum of Personal Accounts, [1807 Dec.],” December 1807. The Morgan Library and Museum. https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/81561.
  • Blank, Antje. “Dress.” In Jane Austen in Context, edited by Janet Todd, 234–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316036525.020.
  • Collier, Mary. “From The Woman’s Labor. An Epistle to Mr Stephen Duck.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52290/the-womans-labor-an-epistle-to-mr-stephen-duck.
  • Davidson, Hilary. Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.
  • Dyer, Jenny. “Georgian Washerwomen: Tales of the Tub from the Long Eighteenth Century.” Continuity and Change 36, no. 1 (May 2021): 89–110. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0268416021000072.
  • Styles, John. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Ep46: The Thing About Queen Mab

8/11/2022

 
They say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but we're here to do just that. This episode we're investigating Willoughby's attempted equine offering, including a discussion of finances and the implied social significance of such a gift, as well as breaking down the meaning behind the name Queen Mab.

Selected Sources
  • Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen’s England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
  • Doody, Margaret Anne. “Introduction.” In Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen, vii–xl. edited by James Kinsley, New ed. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Jones, Christine A. “On Fairy Tales, Their Sensitive Characters, and the Sensible Readers They Create.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 25, no. 1 (2006): 13–30.
  • Ottman, Jill. “‘A Woman Never Looks Better than on Horseback.’” Persuasions On-Line 36, no. 1 (2015). https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol36no1/ottman/.
  • Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist; the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England. New York: Touchstone, 2007.
  • Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Westine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. The Folger Shakespeare. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed August 6, 2022. https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/.
  • Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 2003.
  • Wilwerding, Lauren. “Amatory Gifts in Sense and Sensibility.” Persuasions 37 (2015): 208–17.

Ep34: The Thing About Edward's Hair Ring with guest Dr. Sally Holloway

4/7/2022

 
Mistaken identity! Mystery hair! Edward is sporting a new ring, and now everyone is feeling uncomfortable and confused. Fortunately, Dr. Sally Holloway is here to help us examine this hairy intrigue. If you have ever regretted your choice of accessories, this episode is for you.

Thank you so much to Sally for joining us for this episode! You can find her on Twitter @sally_holloway. You can also check out her book, 
The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture from Oxford University Press (2019).

Ep31: The Thing About Marianne's Smelling Salts with guest Dr. Emily C. Friedman

3/10/2022

 
Pull up your fainting couch because have we got a revivifying episode for you! Dr. Emily C. Friedman is here to take us through the olfactory delights of smelling bottles, as well as breaking down what their various scents and applications tell us about characters like Marianne Dashwood and Lady Bertram.

Thank you so much to Emily for joining us for this episode! You can find her on Twitter @friede, on Instagram @ManuscriptFiction, on YouTube @CriticalProf, and at www.ecfriedman.com where you can find information about all of her work.

Also, check out Emily's monograph
 Reading Smell in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, coming out in paperback soon.

EP20: The Thing About Brandon's Flannel Waistcoat

12/15/2021

 
Is Brandon into grunge? Going through a lumberjack phase? Embracing Santa chic? We're here to uncover just exactly what Colonel Brandon has on under his coat. If you have ever advocated for dressing in layers, this episode is for you.

Selected episode sources
  • Davidson, Hilary. Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2019.
  • Ray, Joan Klingel. “‘The Amiable Prejudices of a Young [Writer’s] Mind’: The Problems of Sense and Sensibility.” Persuasions On-Line 26, no. 1 (2005). https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol26no1/ray.htm.
  • Styles, John. The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
  • Sutherland, Eileen. “That Infamous Flannel Waistcoat.” Persuasions 19 (1995): 58.
  • “Waistcoat.” In OED Online. Oxford Univeristy Press. Accessed November 18, 2021. www.oed.com/view/Entry/225127.

EP04: The Thing About Marianne's Dead Leaves

10/3/2021

 
This episode we're all about the connection between Romanticism and Marianne's passion for dead leaves. We also discuss the ways in which the recent film adaptations have amped up the Romanticism factor. If you were ever a teen with a lot of BIG FEELINGS, this episode is for you. Content warning for this episode: Grief and parental loss are briefly mentioned at a few points throughout the episode.

Selected Episode Resources
  • Daniels, Stephen. “The Political Iconography of Woodland in Later Georgian England.” In The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments, edited by Denis E. Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  • Fizer, Irene. “A ‘Passion for Dead Leaves’: Animated Landscapes and Static Canvases in ‘Sense and Sensibility.’” South Atlantic Review 76, no. 1 (2011): 53–72.

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