Surrey celebrates Jane Austen at 250
Musicians, writers, actors, playwrights and expert panellists came together in The Performing Arts Technology Studios (PATS) on the Surrey Stag Hill campus, to celebrate 250 years since the birth of the author Jane Austen.
Set across two days, the event spanned all three areas of the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries (SAHCI), combining expertise from across Literature and Languages, the Guildford School of Acting (GSA) and Music and Media at Surrey. The series of talks considered contexts, themes, and musical references in Austen’s novels, and were followed each day by the sold-out GSA’s world-premiere of Louis Emmitt-Stern's new bold, witty play, a reimagining of Mansfield Park.
Talks centred around themes from Austen’s most popular novels. Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences (FABSS) Professor Annika Bautz gave a talk on Pride and Prejudice and how a late Victorian working-class readership would have responded to it. Dr Charlotte Mathieson examined new ways of reading Sense and Sensibility through women’s walking and Head of SAHCI, Professor Patricia Pulham, closed the speaker session on Friday, talking about age and the marriage market in Persuasion.
Saturday’s session opened with an exclusive pre-show talk with Director Lucy Atkinson and the cast and creatives behind the new adaptation of Mansfield Park, plus a roundtable discussion with academics Dr Darren Tunstall and Dr Beth Palmer. The curator of The Jane Austen’s House Museum offered their take on the life and legacy of the author over the past 250 years, and Dr Chris Wiley spoke about the role of music in Jane Austen’s life and novels, illustrated with vocal performances by Surrey postgraduate student Michelle Wong.
Professor Pulham said: “While most commonly associated with Hampshire, Surrey features in Emma (1816), famous for its pivotal picnic on Box Hill, and in her unfinished novel, The Watsons (1804). We are delighted this anniversary coincides with the formation of our new School, offering an opportunity to showcase our amazing academics and the breadth of approaches to Austen’s work from a combination of literary, theatrical and musical perspectives.”
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