Upcoming & Select Invited Lectures
Keynote: “Waiting for Mr Darcy,” Jane Austen Society of Australia Special Meeting (Sydney, Australia; June, 2026; by invitation).
Keynote: “‘Uniting Truth and Civility’: Thoughts on Pride and Prejudice,” St John’s College Friday Night Lecture Series. (Annapolis, MD; March, 2026; by invitation).
Keynote: “250 Years of Happy Endings: A Revisionist Reading of Austen,” South American Celebration of Austen’s 250th Birthday (São Paolo, Brazil; November 15, 2025; by invitation).
Keynote: "Revisiting Jane Austen's Happy Endings After 250 Years.” Elon University Celebration of Austen at 250 and Mrs Dalloway at 100. (Invited lecture; November 6, 2025).
Plenary address: “Perspectives on Jane Austen’s Genius,” Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Baltimore, MD; October, 2025; by invitation; also live-streamed and recorded to an audience of 1200).
“Global Jane Austen” invited lecture for 250th Anniversary of Austen’s birth (University of Southampton, UK: July, 2025).
Several keynote lectures around the country as Traveling Lecturer for the Jane Austen Society of North America including Denver, CO; Mississippi; Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; Charleston, SC; Sacramento, CA; Rochester, NY; and Boston, MA (2023-2024).
“An Introduction to Jane Austen’s Desk,” Plenary Workshop, Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America. (Cleveland, OH; October 2024).
"The Culture of Sensibility in Austen and Byron" (Special Event with Peter Graham), Jane Austen Society of North America - New Mexico Region (Santa Fe, May 4, 2024).
"Jane Austen's Happy Endings and the Case of Hartfield," Jane Austen Society of North America - Louisiana Chapter (New Orleans, March 2, 2024).
“'Hastening together to perfect felicity’, or How Happy are Jane Austen’s Endings Anyway?" Jane Austen Society of North America - South Carolina Chapter
(Charleston, SC; January 27, 2024).
"How Happy are Jane Austen’s Endings Anyway?" Jane Austen Society of North America - New York Region (Rochester, NY; January 20, 2024).
“'Hastening together to perfect felicity’, or How Happy are Jane Austen’s Endings Anyway?" Jane Austen Society of North America - Massachusetts Region (Boston, December 3, 2023; by Zoom).
“West of Austen,” Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America. (Denver, CO; November 2023; also live-streamed and recorded).
"West of Austen," Annual General Meeting, Jane Austen Society of North America (Denver, CO; November 4, 2023).
"English Landscape and the Battle of Gardens in Pride and Prejudice," Jane Austen Society of North America. ( Central Missouri region; October 1, 2023; by Zoom).
“Austen’s Youthful Art of Anti-Climax,” Annual General Meeting of the International Society for Literary Juvenilia. (Chapel Hill, NC; June 2023; by invitation).
“The Dangerous Attractions of ‘Virtue in ‘Distress’ in the English and German Novel,” Public Humanities Lecture (UNC Friday Center; November 2017; by invitation).
Program for Humanities, “Dangers of Sensibility” (Durham; November 2017).
Speaker at PlayMakers Performance of Sense and Sensibility (October 2017).
Invited Panelist for Chapel Hill Library: “Why is Jane Austen So Popular?” (May 2017).
North American Scholar Plenary address: “Making Sense of Sensibility,” Annual General Meeting of the JaneAusten Society of North America (Louisville, KY; October 2015; by invitation).
“An Introduction to the Culture of Sensibility,” Fall Meeting, North Carolina division of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Raleigh Public Library, NC; October 2015; by invitation).
Program for Humanities, “Madame Butterfly in Literature,” (Durham; October 2015).
Program for Humanities, "Great Books series" inaugural speaker on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Chapel Hill, Flyleaf Bookstore, 2015).
North American Scholar Plenary address: “Making Sense of Sensibility,” Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Louisville, KY; October 2015; by invitation).
“An Introduction to the Culture of Sensibility,” Fall Meeting, North Carolina division of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Raleigh Public Library, NC; October 2015; by invitation).
Annual Bastian Lecture: “Caring for ‘Our brother on the rack’: Jane Austen and the Limits of Sympathy” (Centre College; Danville, KY; April 2015; by invitation).
Plenary address: “Making Sense of Sensibility” at The Jane Austen Summer Program, (June 12, 2014; Chapel Hill, NC).
Keynote address: "Papas and Hahas in Mansfield Park" at Jane Austen in June event (Tryon Palace, New Bern, NC; June 6, 2014; by invitation).
Guest lecturer for Duke University “Freedom & Authority” First-Year honors program (September 2013; Durham, NC; by invitation): “Liberty and the Law in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”
Keynote address: "Women, Wildness, and Gardens: Jane Austen's Picturesque" at Jane Austen in June event (Tryon Palace, New Bern, NC; June 8, 2013; by invitation).
Plenary Panelist in honor of visiting Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio: “Literary Linearity, East and West” (April 17, 2013; Chapel Hill, NC; by invitation).
Keynote address: “The Entertainment Value of Suffering: Jane Austen and the ‘Luxuries of Distress’,” Jane Austen Day, North Carolina Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Raleigh, NC; October, 2012; by invitation).
“Cowboys, Samurai, and the Crisis of Leadership,” Johnston Lecture, Program in Politics and Government, Washington and Lee University (February 2011, by invitation).
Invited Public Lecture: “Issues in Translating Austen from Text to Film,” Jane Austen Society of North Carolina (Raleigh, NC: October 2010).
Plenary Roundtable: “Austen’s Legacy,” Annual Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Chicago, IL: November 2008).
Invited Public Lecture: “Jane Austen in India: Bollywood Interpretations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility,” Jane Austen Society of North Carolina (Raleigh, NC: June 2006).
Invited Public Lecture: “‘Hastening Together to Perfect Felicity’: the Problem of Jane Austen’s Endings,” Quarterly meeting of the North Carolina chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Raleigh, N.C.; November 2003; by invitation).
Plenary address: “The Architecture of Distress: Jane Austen, Follies, and the Cult of Sensibility,” 2003 Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation Lecture in the Liberal Arts, Simon-Frasier University (Vancouver, B.C., Canada; April 2003; by invitation; endowed lecture).
Plenary address: “Entertaining Grief: Jane Austen and the ‘Luxury of Distress’,” Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Seattle, WA; October 2001; by invitation; endowed lecture).
Keynote address: “‘Who can be in doubt of what followed’: Jane Austen’s Artful (and Precipitous) Endings,” Jane Austen Day, Vancouver Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Vancouver, BC; May 2001; by invitation).
Keynote address: “‘Hastening Together to Perfect Felicity’: Comedy, Closure, and the Price of Happiness in Jane Austen’s Endings,” Annual Meeting, Victoria Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Victoria, BC; September 2000; by invitation; endowed lecture)