Members Meeting - November 2022

JASNA November 2022

November 19th Meeting Recap - Celebrating Jane's Birthday

We had a wonderful afternoon to honour Jane's 247th birthday (a little early - December 16). Ann Craig lead a talk on "Games of the Regency Period". Ann discussed the history of cards and board games and we learned a bit about Commerce, Cribbage, Faro, Loo and Piquet. Board games played included Backgammon, Billiards, Chess, Draughts and Dissected Maps (later known as puzzles). Ann then led us in a rousing game of Foxes & Geese which was a very popular game at the time.  We then enjoyed birthday cupcakes and watched 2 winning JASNA Young Filmmakers' videos and 2 episodes of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. As always, thanks to Jane Papenhuyzen for her technical assistance in preparing the presentations.

Due to unexpected conflicts, the pod cast hosts of "Live From Pemberley" are unable to join us.  However, fear not, we have lined up a prominent young voice on Jane Austen in pop culture, Margaret H. Wilson.  Margaret was a guest on "Live From Pemberley" when they discussed chapters 3 & 4.  She is a Boston-based librarian (former in fact, forever in essence), freelance writer, podcaster, social media expert, and Woman-About-Town. She is a regular NPR personality (https://www.npr.org/2022/07/20/1112448798/dakota-johnson-cant-save-netflixs-persuasion)  and the host of a 24/7 slumber party on Twitter. She serves as one of Pop Culture Happy Hour's fourth chairs, one-third of the podcast Appointment Television, and one-half of the popular TinyLetter, Two Bossy Dames.

Margaret will lead us through a discussion on two short exchanges-- Darcy, Elizabeth, and Col. Fitzwilliam's conversation about piano practicing at the end of chapter 31, and Lizzy and Mr. Bennet's exchange in chapter 57, wherein he says "For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?" It seemed as though you folks were interested in the question of why does Austen retain relevance/how do we convey that relevance to our (comparatively) young audience.  It might worth our while to brush up on those chapters prior to Saturdays zoom meeting.

Upcoming JASNA Annual Meetings (mark your calendars)

Denver/Boulder: *November 3-5 2023, “Pride and Prejudice: A Rocky Romance”

North Ohio (Cleveland): October 18-20, 2024, “Austen, Annotated: Jane Austen’s Literary, Political, and Cultural Origins”

Maryland (Baltimore): October 10-12, 2025, 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth

Persuasionally yours,

Laurie Sayles

Regional Co-ordinator

JASNA Calgary Region