Upcoming 2026 Events for JASNA-SC!

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Here are the plans for 2026 so far – Mark your calendars – Hope you can join us!

1. January 25, 2026, 2:00 pm: Kate Hamil’s Sense and Sensibility at the Dock Street Theatre, Charleston

We are sitting in rows N and O in orchestra right.
You can purchase tickets here: https://charlestonstage.com/shows-and-tickets/sense-and-sensibility

Hope to see you there!

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2. February 14, 2026: 1:00 pm: Special tour of the Gibbes Museum, Charleston at 1 p.m.


Director of Education and Programs Becca Hiester will be leading this private tour, focusing on British connections throughout the gallery. She gave this tour virtually for the Royal Oak Foundation in December:

British Connections in the Gibbes Collection, Charleston S.C.

The Gibbes Museum of Art, located in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina, contains a premier collection of over 10,000 art objects. While its works primarily focus on American Southern art connected to Charleston, many objects have British connections. Housed in a stunning Beaux Arts-style building, the museum offers a rich window into the region’s history as a major British colony, where Charlestonians commissioned portraits and collected works painted by English artists. Becca Hiester, Gibbes Director of Education and Programs, will give us a private tour exploring the museum’s transatlantic connections, with a special look at British-American artist Benjamin West. West, born in Pennsylvania, rose to prominence while in 18th-century London. He earned the nickname “American Raphael” and attracted the attention of patrons such as King George III. In 1772, he was appointed Historical Painter to the King, and later became President of the Royal Academy. Becca will explore West’s work and describe the artist’s connections to wealthy Charlestonians. Finally, she will explain how British art found its home in the Gibbes Collection.

Please RSVP to Kalee if you can join us: jasnasouthcarolina@gmail.com

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3. March 14, 2026: 1:00 pm: Bluffton Library

“Trekking with Jane: A Travelogue of Southern England in Austen’s Footsteps”

Winchester Cathedral

Join Deb Barnum as she recounts her May 2025 trip with JASNA as they toured the Homes and Haunts of Jane Austen. We will visit Steventon where she was born, Bath where she lived for five years, Chawton where she wrote her novels, Winchester where she died, and all the places in-between, including the places she visited in London.

At the Bluffton Library, light refreshments served. Details forthcoming.

Please join us when you can!

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JASNA-South Carolina Fall 2025 Events!

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Join us for our upcoming meetings this Fall!

September 30, 2025, 6:00 – 7:30 pm,
in collaboration with the Charleston Country Public Library:

Spilling Tea with the Jane Austen Society 

Join us at Main Library for a special evening to celebrate the life and writings of Jane Austen! 

“A Quill of Their Own: 
Five Early Women Writers to Read after You’ve Read all of Jane Austen”

In partnership with the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), South Carolina Region, we’ll hear from Deb Barnum, a collectible and rare books bookseller and early women writers independent scholar, and Kalee Lineberger, a writer and the current Regional Coordinator of the South Carolina Region, for a discussion on the women authors who influenced Jane Austen.

Light refreshments will be served.

The parking lot below the library is free for the first hour, then $1/half hour.
CCPL Main Branch Auditorium,
68 Calhoun St
Charleston, SC

More info here: https://ccplsc.libcal.com/event/14841506

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October 15, 2025

Kalee Lineberger on “Regency Fashion”

Oconee Public Library
Details TBA

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November 15, 2025, 2 – 5 pm

Celebrating Austen’s 250th
and the 2005 Pride & Prejudice 20th

A WATCH PARTY!

A Light Afternoon Tea will be served

Bluffton Library

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December 13, 2025

Jane Austen’s Birthday Ball

Mt. Pleasant Branch Library Auditorium
1133 Mathis Ferry Rd
Mt. Pleaseant, SC

Details TBA

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Hope you can be with us!

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JASNA-SC Next Meeting! ~ “Regency Fashion”

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Please join us for our next JASNA-South Carolina meeting
at the Bluffton Library,
15 March 2025, 2-4 pm!

Step back in time to explore the elegance and significance of Regency fashion. We will delve into the historical and political influences shaping style in Regency England, with connections to Parisian trends and early American fashion. Discover insights from Jane Austen’s personal letters, where clothing and society intertwine, and see how modern adaptations bring her world to life through costume. Highlighting the presentation is a showcase of hand-crafted Regency costumes, offering a tangible glimpse into this fascinating era.

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Kalee Lineberger is a writer and editor from the South Carolina Lowcountry. A graduate of Clemson University, she works in distribution at Advantage Forbes Books, and volunteers as a steward at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath. She is the current Regional Coordinator of the South Carolina Region of the Jane Austen Society of North America [JASNA].

Hope to see you there!

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JASNA-SC Meeting ~ Brenda Cox on Mr. Collins! ~ November 16, 2-4 pm, Bluffton Library

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Please join us for our next meeting at the Bluffton Library, 120 Palmetto Way, Bluffton, SC!


JASNA-SC and the Friends of the Bluffton Library
November 16, 2024, 2-4 pm
at the Bluffton Library

“Why Mr. Collins? The Church and Clergy in Jane Austen’s Novels”

About the Talk:
Jane Austen had a high regard for the church. Why, then, did she present Mr. Collins as a buffoon? Why was he so deferential to Lady Catherine? (He had good reasons.) Did he fail in his duties, as Edmund Bertram of Mansfield Park tells us some clergymen did? We’ll explore Mr. Collins’s words, actions, and character, including his marriage proposal, comparing him to Austen’s other clergymen, satirical cartoons of the time, and Anglican and Evangelical ideals.


About the Book:

The Church of England was at the heart of Jane Austen’s world of elegance and upheaval. Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England explores the church’s role in her life and novels, the challenges that church faced, and how it changed the world. In one volume, this book brings together resources from many sources to show the church at a pivotal time in history, when English Christians were freeing enslaved people, empowering the poor and oppressed, and challenging society’s moral values and immoral behavior.

Readers will meet Anglicans, Dissenters, Evangelicals, women leaders, poets, social reformers, hymn writers, country parsons, authors, and more. Lovers of Jane Austen or of church history and the long eighteenth century will enjoy discovering all this and much more, as Cox explains the many questions surrounding Austen’s clergyman characters.

About the Speaker:

Brenda S. Cox lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She came across a copy of Emma as a young mom, and enjoyed it so much that she immediately bought a volume including all of Austen’s works. She has loved Jane Austen ever since. About twelve years ago she began researching the church in Austen’s England. She found there was no single, accessible book that answered all her questions. So she spent about ten years researching, and wrote the book, Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. It explores connections between Austen’s work, her Church of England, and prominent events and people in English Christianity at the time. Brenda writes for Jane Austen’s World, her own blog, Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen, and the magazine Jane Austen’s Regency World. She has spoken on Austen and the church to Jane Austen groups in Canada, England, Australia, and various parts of the US.


Hope you can join us!

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