How wonderful for Halifax that Elaine Bander is coming here to give a talk on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park at Dalhousie University on Friday. Please join us in the English Department (Rm. 1198, McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building, 6135 University Avenue) at 3:45pm to listen to Elaine talk about “Jane Austen’s Fanny Price and Lord Nelson: Rethinking the National Hero(ine).”

Elaine is warm, witty, and wonderful, and I’m so glad she’s coming to visit us. She’s coordinating the 2014 Jane Austen Society of North America AGM on Mansfield Park, next October in Montréal, and she’s the President of JASNA Canada. If you missed my interview with her a couple of weeks ago, you can find it here. She talks about her work on Austen and Frances Burney, her experience as the JASNA International Visitor in 2011, and why she thinks Austen is so popular these days. And, of course, she gives us a glimpse of some of the exciting things we can look forward to at next year’s AGM.

We’re getting close to the end of the Year of Pride and Prejudice, and that means the Year of Mansfield Park is almost here. Mansfield Park is darker and more controversial than light, bright, and sparkling P & P, but it’s a powerful, richly rewarding novel. 200 years of Mary Crawford’s charms and games of speculation. 200 years of Fanny Price and her heroic resistance to the overbearing men and women in her life. Let’s start the celebrations on Friday! If you’re in (or near) Halifax, I hope you’ll join us for Elaine’s talk and a reception afterwards.

On behalf of JASNA Nova Scotia, I’d like to say thanks to JASNA and Dalhousie’s Department of English for making this event possible.