JASA
The Jane Austen Society of Australia Inc.
The JASA calendar has events nearly every month, with meetings in Sydney and other capitals and regional areas, an annual Conference, and a Christmas lunch. There are also two online events – an international lecture and a study morning.
calendar of events
Please note that the below calendar does not include all regional meetings. Full details are provided for Sydney meetings; for some regions dates are included but not details; and others are not on the calendar. If you are interested in a particular region, you can find contact details on the regional meetings page of this site.
JASA Christmas Lunch 2025
Personal reflections on Jane Austen: Flautist Jane Rutter and her flute For the 2025 JASA Christmas celebration, renowned flautist Jane Rutter will perform a new solo flute arrangement of Robyn Adair, the only music Jane Austen ever mentioned in her novels; she will speculate on the relationship between Charlotte Lucas and Lizzie Bennet, and also […]
Sydney meeting
Lady Susan: A Performance
Terry McTavish and Susannah Fullerton
Lady Susan is an accomplished female villain. She confesses her schemes and machinations to her confidante, Mrs Alicia Johnson. Where might Jane Austen have taken her most unusual heroine? This intriguing theatrical entertainment has been performed at the Globe Theatre, Dunedin. Terry McTavish is a Dunedin actor and writer, and former drama and English teacher.
ONLINE International lecture
Living with Jane Austen
Professor Janet Todd
Professor Janet Todd, OBE, author of the acclaimed new memoir Living with Jane Austen, of Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden and editor of Jane Austen in Context, will speak about her new book. Janet, an internationally renowned scholar, will share her experience of a life shaped by reading Jane Austen.
Sydney meeting
Even my Mother Reads Fan Fiction
Gillian Brent
From the earliest written stories, people have been picking up on them, adding their own spin, a different point of view, or moving the characters and the plot from their origins to a new place. Jane Austen is no exception. Gillian will explain the basics of Fanfiction (or Derivative Fiction as it is often known), […]
Day conference
Jane Austen – Romance novelist?
Jane Austen is often thought of as the original romance novelist, but are her novels always romantic? And are we doing them a disservice if we only consider them in that light? JASA is pleased to welcome international speaker Inger Brodey, author of Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness, to our day conference. Inger, […]
Sydney meeting
‘Her solace was visiting and news’: Gossip in Jane Austen
Amanda Jones
‘My dear Mr Bennet, have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” Many of us were socialised to think of gossip as a bad thing, which we should avoid, but ‘gossip’ drives and furthers many of the plots in Austen’s novels. Perceived or unperceived, reliable or questionable, as an important means of communication, […]
Sydney meeting
Mansfield Park and Education
Dr Heather Neilson
Mansfield Park can be read as a meditation on education, in both the formal and moral senses of the term. In this presentation Heather will be considering the ways in which the various characters of Austen’s novel reveal the results, both pernicious and beneficial, of their education. She will also briefly consider the ways in […]
Sydney meeting
Jane Austen at the Queen’s Club
Ben Taafe
Ben Taafe describes his talk as follows: I spoke once before to JASA. The topic, ‘Jane Austen in the Classroom’, was a reflection on my years as a teacher. In 2010, when I left the classroom, I thought that retirement would mark the end of literature classes, that I would bid Jane Austen adieu. But […]
JASA Christmas Lunch 2026
Details to come.
No event found!