From the JASNA New York Metropolitan Region:

Jane Austen may not have visited the learned halls of Vassar College (founded in 1861), but we may now do so in her honor. Famous Vassar College alumni include such luminaries as Jean Webster (author of Daddy-Long-Legs and great-niece of Samuel Clemens), poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, actresses Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Lisa Kudrow, and Anne Hathaway, as well as "Carney Sibley" of Maud Hart Lovelace's Carney's House Party. 

While we won't be garnering daisy chains (one of Vassar's oldest traditions), we will be visiting Vassar's Taylor Hall Auditorium and its Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center on Saturday, April 9, 2016.

Our program will include:

• Program Chair Kathryn Shanks Libin, JASNA member and Associate Professor of Music at Vassar College;
• Susan Zlotnick, Professor of English and current Dean of Freshmen at Vassar College ("Jane Austen and the Gothic"); 
• Marilyn Francus, Professor of English at West Virginia University, JASNA's 2015 International Visitor and Chair of the International Visitor's Program ("Austen and Young Writers"); 
• Performances by the Vassar Women's Chorus conducted by Vassar's choir director, Christine Howlett.  Selections will include the U.S. Premiere of "From the Three Prayers of Jane Austen" by Amanda Jacobs, co-author of the book, music and lyrics of "Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, A Musical".  We will also hear an encore performance of the Eleanor Daley pieces written for, and performed at, JASNA's 2012 AGM; 
• Guided tour of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center's "American Stories 1800-1950" exhibition which features key works of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries housed in the Art Center's vault.  Among the artists included are John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, Sanford Gifford, George Inness, William Merritt Chase, Maxfield Parrish, Arthur B. Davies, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Ben Shahn.  

You can read more about costs, travel, and more online at http://www.jasnany.org/pdf/Vassar%20Info.pdf and at the JASNA New York Metropolitan Region website at http://www.jasnany.org/.

Here are details for the March 13 meeting to the reading group, from our discussion leaders Nelson and Robin Bridwell.

This meeting will be an opportunity for all of us to become better acquainted with Jane Austen’s extended family. Please feel free to prepare yourself for as many of the following activities as you find appealing.
 
Destination: Golden Globes
 
The head of the studio has just called you to complain that they have totally exhausted every conceivable Jane Austen movie plot, and consequently need you to come up with a film script that centers upon another member of her extended family. Present a brief pitch for a new film about another member of her family that you feel could be a box office hit and a significant contender for motion picture awards. At the meeting, the group will vote on “Jannie” awards for the best drama, romance, and comedy.
 
What’s my line?
 
In this variation on the 1950s television quiz show, you can volunteer to play the part of a member of Jane’s extended family. Around the room, other members of the group will take turns asking you one yes/no question until someone has identified who you are.
 
An Austen Weekend
 
As everyone knows, amazing, surprising, and sometimes tragic things happen in bucolic English country estates, especially in Hampshire! As luck would have it, you find yourself invited to spend an idyllic weekend at such a place. Which Austen family member would you bring along with you, and why?
 
Trivia Quiz
 
In this activity, a series of facts will be stated about various members of Jane’s family. For each fact, everyone will be invited to identify which family member this fact applies to. The person who first identifies the correct family member for each fact will win one point. At the end, the person with the most points will win a nifty prize.

​It is time to submit your AGM Tribute Grant Application!

Beginning today, February 15, the Grant Committee will be accepting applications for the Oregon/SW Washington Region's 2016 AGM Tribute Grant. This year's AGM will be held October 21-23, 2016, in Washington D.C.,  and the theme is "Emma at 200: No One But Herself." It promises to be a compelling event in a dynamic location!

If you have not yet attended an AGM and would like to apply, go to our Tribute Grant 2016 page. Please be sure to read all of the FAQs and application details before you apply. Any applicant not meeting the list of criteria will be disqualified. If you have any questions, please contact Kim Higgins at [email protected]. 

Members, who have previously applied but have not been awarded the grant, are encouraged to apply again. The final day to submit your application will be April 15. The winner will be announced on or before May 15. We will select our honoree/s at the reading group meeting on March 13.

The Jane Austen Summer Program is excited to announce its 2016 symposium, "Mansfield Park and Its Afterlives", co-directed by UNC's James Thompson and Inger Brody.

The fourth annual event will take place June 16-19, 2016, in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

​For more information about the program, please visit http://janeaustensummer.org. 

Thus begins Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody of Pride and Prejudice, now made into a movie to which JASNA members were invited for a sneak preview January 22. Since most of you did not avail yourselves of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Stephanie Fleming and I thought we’d let you in on what you missed. Please be aware that this description includes spoilers.

The story begins in a Regency England threatened not by the French, but rather by unruly masses of zombies. The zombies are the result of a mysterious infection, which renders its victims “undead” and which is spread through biting living humans. In this Regency England, young ladies of accomplishment don’t just cover screens and speak French, they also must be skilled zombie warriors and speak either Japanese (preferably) or Chinese, depending on where they received their combat training. Thus it is not just rain which threatens Jane as she heads to Netherfield for dinner on horseback, but also zombie hordes in want of more brains.

Grahame-Smith credits Jane Austen as “co-author” of his book, and indeed, the book fairly well hews to Jane’s original story, mainly adding in zombie attacks at appropriate moments and providing what some readers (myself included) found to be a much more satisfying end for Mr. Wickham than merely being banished to New Castle to join the regulars. The movie, on the other hand, deviates from Grahame-Smith’s book (and from Jane Austen’s story) in a number of important ways. You will be glad to know that Mr. Collins still makes an offer to Lizzy, whose refusal still receives approval from Mr. Bennet. And Elizabeth still tries to kill Mr. Darcy after his rather rude proposal (actually, this fight scene is one of the more entertaining parts of the film) and fights Lady Catherine (England’s most successful zombie killer in the book and movie) with swords and daggers rather than words. However, Austen’s/Grahame-Smith’s story is substantially simplified and changed for the movie. There is no trip with the Gardiners to Pemberley, and Lydia does not run away with Wickham to London. Instead, the movie includes a completely new plot line involving a mysterious Lazarus Church, where some zombies are hiding out eating pig brains in the hope (we are told) of living in peaceful co-existence with living humans. Wickham is a liaison to this community and – gasp – the community is not so benign as it is made out to be. Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy in this film version overtly surface when Darcy rescues Lydia from Lazarus, where she has been taken prisoner by Wickham. Elizabeth reveals her true feelings for Darcy as he lays apparently unconscious after a climactic zombie battle at the walled city of London. Wickham does get his just reward in the movie, but it’s not nearly as delightful (in the book he is rendered paralyzed and incontinent after a carriage accident). 

Darcy is well played in the movie by Sam Riley, best known for his role as Ian Curtis in Control, a biopic about the lead singer of the post-punk bank Joy Division (OK, I had to Google Joy Division, too). A leading zombie killer, this Darcy doesn’t just put people off with his haughty behavior, he also disrupts dinner parties by loosing carrion flies to detect latent zombies (the flies can find undead flesh), and unceremoniously beheading them at the table. Lily James of Downton Abbey fame gives a feisty performance as Elizabeth, and is enjoyable as an action hero version of the Jane Austen heroine, who declares she will never trade her sword for a ring. Who-vians will recognize Matt Smith as Mr. Collins. Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) is the zombie-decimating Lady Catherine. 

This movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is clearly more zombies than Pride and Prejudice, although it’s entertaining to note that, apparently, zombie aficionados aren’t entirely satisfied with it as a horror film:

Yes, DecayMag.  Who knew?

For me, the actual “added genre” in the movie – zombies – worked as a parody. Much has already been written about sub-currents of dread in Pride and Prejudice related to threats of invasion and war, and the zombie threat clearly personifies that dread. But more importantly, I think the present day popularity of zombie-themed entertainment reflects our own sub-currents of dread in an increasingly uncertain world. Thus the zombie threat connects the modern audience directly with people in Jane’s world. And even the substituted plot line of the Lazarus Church (clearly added to up the zombie-ante) retains a connection to Austen’s original – can’t Darcy’s intervention to effect Lydia’s marriage be seen as rescuing her, in a sense bringing her back from the metaphorical “death” that her flight with Wickham imposed?

Don’t get me wrong. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not a good movie. But it is good fun. ​