About this Event

“It is a truth universally acknowledged …” that an academic research library in possession of a first edition of Pride and Prejudice … “must be in want of …” a celebration of the life and work of Jane Austen.  

In honor of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and our recent acquisition of Pride and Prejudice, the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press will host Jane Austen Now: A Saturday Symposium. This one-day event brings together scholars and readers from the University of Delaware and beyond to explore Austen’s influence and cultural legacy.  

The symposium features lectures from five speakers offering new perspectives on Austen’s work and impact, with an opening introduction and Q&A moderated by Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities, University of Delaware.  

In addition, attendees are invited to view a pop-up exhibition in Special Collections, curated by English Ph.D. candidate Caroline Liebel. The display will include first and later editions of Austen’s novels, illustrated works from the turn of the 20th century and rare related materials such as Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s essay, “Why I Love Jane Austen.” 

The program is free and open to the public, but space is limited. Advance registration is required. A light lunch will be provided. 

Talks and Speakers 

• “Teaching Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Now,” by Mary Bowden 

• “Austen’s Adaptation(s) and Adaptation(s) of Austen,” by Cat Champney 

• “‘The Work of a Moment!’: When Jane Austen Stops Time,” by Maria Frawley 

• “Celebrating Jane Austen in America: Publishers, Readers, Critics & Collectors,” by Juliette Wells 

• “Jane Austen in the Public Imagination,” by Cheryl A. Wilson 

About the Speakers 

Mary Bowden 
Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities in the University of Delaware’s English Department. Her research examines the lives of plants in 19th-century British literature and culture. Her first book, Radical Science: Plants, Agency, and Nineteenth-Century British Narrative, is forthcoming from Ohio State University Press in March 2026. She has held fellowships at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation and the University of Illinois’ Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and in January 2026 will begin a fellowship at the Huntington Library. 

Cat Champney 
Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include adaptation studies, the Gothic, and popular culture. Her dissertation bridges studies of fairy tales and adaptation through the “Bluebeard” tale and its adaptation network. 

Maria Frawley 
Professor of English at the George Washington University, where she teaches 19th-century British literature. Her books include Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain, studies of Victorian women’s travel writing, Anne Brontë, and Harriet Martineau. She co-edited The Routledge Companion to Jane Austen and is the author of Jane Austen in 50 Words (2025). 

Juliette Wells 
Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College and co-curator of the exhibition A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. She is the author of three histories of Austen’s readers, most recently A New Jane Austen: How Americans Brought Us the World’s Greatest Novelist, and created annotated editions of Austen’s novels for Penguin Classics Deluxe. 

Cheryl A. Wilson 
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, and a graduate of UD’s Ph.D. program in English. She is the author of Literature and Dance in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Jane Austen to the New Woman (2009), Fashioning the Silver-Fork Novel (2012), and Jane Austen and the Victorian Heroine (2017). She has also co-edited multiple volumes, including The Routledge Companion to Jane Austen. Her current research explores intersections between ballet and 19th-century literature and culture. 

This program is presented by the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press with support from the Friends of the University of Delaware Library, the Department of English, the Department of Women & Gender Studies, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection at the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.