The Austen Connection

Hello friends,

Enjoy this special podcast episode from a fun and meaningful conversation broadcast from our live taping at a one-day conference, “Everybody's Jane Austen.”

This special symposium was hosted and produced by the Jane Austen Society of North America's Metro New York region. It was recorded live at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, in Manhattan.

It was our honor here at the Austen Connection to speak with two amazing people on the front lines of Austen dialogue: JASNA director Renata Dennis, and Producer Tia A. Smith.

Renata Dennis serves as the Georgia Regional Coordinator and on the board of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and she also serves on JASNA's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.

So Renata is on the front lines of discussions about equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Austen conversations and scholarship.

Tia A. Smith is a film producer who develops what she calls “culturally shifting projects that leave lasting imprints.” These lasting imprints that Tia Smith produces include more than 3,500 hours of television and film, with 15 movies, two documentaries, and four major awards shows to her name.

Tia A. Smith also executive-produced the most recent film and television adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the February 2024 production for Hallmark Channel as part of its Loveuary month of Jane Austen.

Enjoy the conversation.

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Thank you to the Everybody's Jane Austen organizers, Sarah Rose Kearns and Fran Winter and the team at JASNA's Metro New York Region. This episode was taped live at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, in Manhattan.

Cool links and research:

* Here’s more about Hallmark’s 2024 Sense and Sensibility film

* The Race and the Regency Lab and its director, scholar Dr. Patricia Matthew

* Historical Regency-era heiress Dido Elizabeth Belle

* Belle the movie

* Author Vanessa Riley writes historical fiction drawing from real lives and deep research on 18th and 19th century Black history. She also talked with us for this Austen Connection podcast episode.

* Historian Gretchen Gerzina has written several books unearthing the lives of 18th and 19th century Black British figures and communities.

* Professor Henry Louis Gates’ series of books

* UK Historian David Olusoga produced an extremely moving and all-encompassing series on Britain’s Black past, Africa and Britain: A Forgotten History, available to stream on Amazon Prime

* UCL’s Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, and the educational initiative “Colonial Countryside: Reinterpreting English Country Houses” - insightful historic companions to our readings of Mansfield Park

Coming this spring from PBS Masterpiece - Miss Austen! This is a television adaptation of Gill Hornby’s book Miss Austen, starring UK actor Keeley Hawes, who happens to be married to another actor named Matthew Macfadyen whom some of you may know of. (😉)

* Music for the podcast episode is by: Nico Staf, Patrick Patrikios, RKVC, and we went out with music by Amy Lynn and the Honey Men, all from YouTube’s Free Music Archive or De Wolfe Music.

If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it and also leave a review!