Today we began to create a feasible structure for our research and a plan for presenting that research. Given that the community reading groups span three weeks, we think that we should divide the book into three sections, focusing on a different section each week. We can dedicate the first week to “the intro and beginning chapters, the second week to the events at Bath, and the third week to the events at the Abbey.”

During the first week we will give readers a sense of the general historical context of Austen’s life and writing, briefly explaining who Austen was, her writing style, and the political, social, and literary context of her time.

For the second week, we will focus on the issues Austen weaves into Catherine’s time at Bath. Specifically, we will attend to the early nineteenth-century phenomena of empire, commodification, and courtship. During these conversations, we will want to think about these questions: Is Austen pro or anti empire? Is Austen a “feminist?” Is Northanger Abbey a critique of courtship culture?

 The third week will allow readers to consider the ideas that arise in the novel when Catherine stays at Northanger Abbey. Here, we may tailor the conversation to the contexts of Gothic Literature, the French Revolution, and the British government. In applying this historical context to the text, we can discuss how Austen uses the family as a metaphor for the state. Here are some questions we may want to consider for this discussion: What does Austen do with this metaphor? How does she use it to say something about the government/politics of her time? Is Austen pro or anti government? We might also want to think about what an Abbey means as a space at this time in history and how that relates to Austen’s familial metaphor.

Primary sources will inform most of this research. For a list of databases and source types we may use, see the “Databases and Sources” document in the Google Drive’s “primary sources” folder.