Join us from the comfort of your own home for a virtual presentation from the AGM archive. Zoom and presentation details are below. Hope to see you there!
Theatre and Theatricality; Or, Jane Austen and Learning the Art of Dialogue
with Gillian Dow, PhD, associate professor of English at the University of Southampton and former executive director of Chawton House
“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.
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
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 you can join us at Bishop Gadsden on January 18th, from 2-4 pm for our Annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea – with Austen chat and games! Please bring a sweet or savory to share. Also bring your favorite Austen passage to share!
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.
Our Next Meetings for Fall 2024 – Spring 2025 will be announced soon!
We would like to thank Kendall Spillman for her grand leadership as the Regional Coordinator these past two years – excellent and varied programs were offered, as well as the all-important behind the scenes work of BYLAWS and creating a board of people to continue the Region’s work.
Our new duly-elected RC will be Kalee Lineberger, our very own Regency-era fashionista! Kalee will work on program-planning this summer, so please visit this website and our facbeook page for updates as they happen.
So, a hearty Thank You to Kendall, and a hearty Welcome to Kalee!
Our esteemed leaders: [from left clockwise around table]
Kendall [retiring RC], Deb [new Advisory Chair], Kalee [new RC!], Ginny [former RC], Betty [avid Austen fan], and Joanne [former RC] – not in the picture: Libby [treasurer], Sharon [publicity] – What a group!!
Happy New Year, Austenites! Please join us for our first JASNA-SC meeting of 2024!
On January 27, 2-4 pm at Bishop Gadsden, UNC Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Jane Austen Summer Program Director Inger Brodey* will be presenting thoughts from her new book Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness:
“‘Hastening Together to Perfect Felicity,’ Or, How Happy are Austen’s Endings Anyway?”
[*Professor Brodey is brought to us through a Traveling Lecturer grant from JASNA National.]
Join us in celebrating Jane Austen’s Birthday on December 16th!
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Join us from the comfort of your own home as we welcome author Kim Wilson to celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday! Kim will explore how the Twelve Days of Christmas were celebrated in Austen’s day, including traditional Georgian and Regency holiday activities and games. Kim will also share recipes for making a Twelfth Night Cake and a wassail bowl so attendees can plan their own Jane Austen holiday celebration!
Not required but we encourage you to participate wearing your most festive Regency garb ~ and please have a Cup of Tea at the ready as we toast Jane on her birthday!
**If you would like to participate and did not receive the zoom invite, please email us at jasnasouthcarolina@gmail.com to request the zoom link**
Hope you can zoom with us!
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Kim Wilson is a writer and speaker who specializes in Jane Austen, English history, culinary history, and garden history. She is the author of Tea with Jane Austen, In the Garden with Jane Austen, and At Home with Jane Austen. Kim is a traveling lecturer for the Jane Austen Society of North America for the 2022-2023 term and has been a featured lecturer for organizations such as the Royal Oak Foundation (the American partner of the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Road Scholar. In 2020, she was the keynote speaker for the Chawton House Virtual Garden Festival. She is currently writing Entertaining Mr. Darcy, and Celebrating Jane Austen’s Birthday for the series Celebrating the Year with Jane Austen with coauthor Jo Ann Staples. This year she is launching a new website, RosyPast.com, which will feature historic-lifestyle books and articles, tutorials on cooking and crafting from past eras, and original modern merchandise—such as t-shirts, mugs, and prints—inspired by history and iconic authors like Jane Austen.
Jane Austen in South Carolina 