Join JASNA-NC for a discussion of our member Inger Brodey’s new book Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness this August. Our facilitator will be the author Inger Brodey, and we look forward to our conversation!
For a flyer about the book that also includes a discount code for the book via Hopkins Press, click here.
The Details
What: Virtual Book Club: Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness by Inger Brodey
When: August 25, 2024 from 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Where: In the comfort of your home via Zoom
RSVP: This event is open to members and interested guests; it is FREE but registration is required. Register for Zoom here.
Accessibility: We have auto-captions available in the Zoom meeting for our conversation, and there may be slides with text and images accompany the presentation that will be as clear and as high-contrast as possible. If you have accessibility needs we have not addressed here, please let us know.
About the Book
Do Jane Austen novels truly celebrate—or undermine—romance and
happy endings?
How did Jane Austen become a cultural icon for fairy-tale endings when her own books end in ways that are rushed, ironic, and reluctant to satisfy readers’ thirst for romance? In Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness, Austen scholar Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey journeys through the iconic novelist’s books in the first full-length study of Austen’s endings. Through a careful exploration of Austen’s own writings and those of the authors she read during her lifetime—as well as recent cultural reception and adaptations of her novels—Brodey examines the contradictions that surround this queen of romance.
Providing innovative and engaging readings of Austen’s novels, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness traces her development as an author and her convictions about authorship, novels, and the purpose of domestic fiction. In a review of modern film adaptions of Austen’s work, the book also offers new interpretations while illustrating how contemporary ideas of marriage and happiness have shaped Austen’s popular currency in the Anglophone world and beyond
About the Author and our Facilitator
Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey is a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the cofounder and director of the Jane Austen Summer Program and Jane Austen & Co., and the principal investigator of Jane Austen’s Desk.
About The Virtual Book Club
The Virtual Book Club takes place quarterly with the typical following rotation: a contemporary of Austen, nonfiction work, an Austen work, and fan fiction. We’re switching up the timing and order of our book club this year due to scheduling opportunities and book releases, and our members Mary Jane Curry, Nancy Martin Young, and Sara Tavela serve as our primary book club facilitators and help coordinate our book selections.
