Friday 14th July 2023

Venue: Chawton House

Celebrating academic research at Chawton House, part of our 20th anniversary weekend

The Library at Chawton House contains a unique collection of works by early women writers – Austen’s contemporaries and forebears. One of our aims is to facilitate the recovery of these women writers, encouraging research on their lives and works, and sharing that research with wide audiences. The University of Southampton was responsible for delivering this aim after an academic partnership was established in 1999. Current and former Southampton staff have shaped an academic community at Chawton House over the past 20 years with a lively programme of lectures and Visiting Fellowships, and with research that has helped shed light on the history of women associated with Chawton House and the Knight family, as well as on women writers more broadly.  

In July 2003, the first conference ‘Women’s Writing in Britain 1660-1830’ was hosted by the University of Southampton. A vibrant programme of conferences followed, many of which became landmark publications. In July 2013, the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Chawton House celebrated its 10-year anniversary with another conference reflecting on women’s writing in the long eighteenth century. Ten years on, on Friday 14 July 2023, our speakers once again look back, sharing their own research inspired by Chawton House, and talking about some of the academic highlights from the last two decades. 

About the Speakers  

Dr Gillian Dow is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Southampton and was Executive Director of Chawton House from 2014-2019. She has published widely on Jane Austen and her contemporaries and has a special interest in pan-European women writers and translation.

Talk: ‘Women’s Writing at Chawton House: a Retrospect’

 

Professor Jennie Batchelor is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Kent and began her career as Chawton/University of Southampton Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s Writing (2002-4). She has published widely on women’s writing, periodicals and material culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as is Patron of the Kent branch of the Jane Austen Society.

Talk: ‘The Will of Susannah Sackree: Nursemaid and Housekeeper of the Knight Family’

 

Dr Alison Daniell completed her PhD at the English Department of the University of Southampton in 2020, using the collection at Chawton as the basis of much of her research. She was a Visiting Fellow in 2021. Her project explored how married women of the long eighteenth century experienced coverture and the ways in which female-authored fiction of the same period engaged with and reimagined those experiences. Alison is a qualified barrister and practised for a number of years in divorce and family law. She has also lectured in law at UCL. She is currently working as the Academic Skills Officer for the Widening Participation and Social Mobility Department at the University of Southampton.

Talk: ‘Elizabeth Knight and Chawton House: Thinking Back Through Literary and Historical Mothers’

 

Tickets

In partnership with the University of Southampton, we are delighted to be able to offer free tickets to this event, including tea and coffee on arrival, the talks, and a drink of your choice afterwards. Booking is essential, and these tickets are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.