Program of Events
Given the current COVID-19 concerns, the Eastern Pennsylvania Region of JASNA has postponed our 2020 spring, summer, and autumn in-person events until 2021. Given this, the Region will be hosting online events. Please see below for additional details.
2020 Region Events
November Virtual Event
Teatime with Dr. Lyndon Dominique
On Saturday, November 14th at 3:00pm Eastern, we will be
hosting "Teatime with Dr. Lyndon Dominique".
During this online event, Dr. Dominique will present a new talk entitled They Came Before Olivia: Black Ladies and Political Blackness in
Eighteenth Century British Literature. Here a brief description of what to
expect…
As a term, Political Blackness dates back to the 1970s and refers to blacks, whites, Jews and Asians
working in solidarity to fight racism and imperialism in Britain. “Anyone from a group affected by
racism could identify as politically black, to form a united group,” The Guardian newspaper
tells
us. However, during 2016 Black History Month celebrations, this newspaper also asked if “political
blackness [is] still relevant today?” In response, this talk contends that political blackness is a
useful term for understanding how eighteenth-century literary texts circulate ideas about
solidarity, political agitation and coalition building. Writers such as Aphra Behn and John Dunton
utilize and politicize female tropes of blackness to advance ideas about class and gender difference
in ways that can be read in tandem with broad injustices that are levelled against people of African
descent. This talk will attempt to contextualize discussions about Olivia Fairfield from The
Woman
of Colour and that novel’s politics of abolition while considering some of Olivia’s unusual
predecessors—black ladies created and politicized by white writers—as Dr Dominique asks, ‘what does
a distinctly eighteenth-century political blackness look like?’ and ‘what collective role do
literary black ladies play in understanding it?’
Afterwards, we will have an interactive Q&A session with Dr. Dominique, which will conclude with one lucky attendee winning a signed copy of his latest book, The Woman of Colour.
The response we received from our two online Teatime events has been amazing. We are very happy that
so many of our fellow Janites enjoyed it! We also know that many
people are still dealing with personal and financial hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given this, I am pleased to announce that "Teatime with Dr. Lyndon
Dominique" event will be FREE and is
open to anyone interested in Jane Austen!
If you would like to join us on Saturday, November 14th at
3:00pm, then register using the following link...
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mScr3MiQTFCM3hte3L-pvA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining this
online session.
If you would like to help to support JASNA Eastern PA in providing these online events (you may not
be aware of it, but hosting these events can be costly), please click the Donate button below. All
donations go towards providing Jane Austen related
events.
Photo Credit: Photographs courtesy of our speakers