What do scholars know already about your topic? What do you hope to add to the conversation?

Though I have not yet narrowed down a single topic that I wish to focus on individually, I am still attached to the idea of incorporating race issues, the treatment of racial minorities, and those issues’ influence on Austen’s writing (specifically where it shows up in Northanger Abbey) into our studies and teachings. To me, this is important to add because many people view Austen as a moral “gray area” and use it to further their bigoted views (not only regarding race, but also in the realms of gender roles, social class, etc). In teaching the context of the novel and of Austen’s life, it is critical to explore such ambiguities, discuss their potential effects and consequences, and distinguish progressive messages as well as problematic ones. I am not sure whether this will be a success, or end up proving too lofty of a pursuit as there is next to no scholarship on the matter. There are some valuable secondary sources on racism and the slave trade, but they are focused mainly on Mansfield Park and bear no mention of Northanger Abbey. Perhaps it would be helpful to read secondary discussions of the slave trade, race and race relations in the context of these other novels and try to apply my findings to Northanger Abbey. Regardless, what I/ we discern about the topic would have to come almost entirely from primary sources, of which there seem to be few. Search keywords such as “race” “color” “racism” and “slavery” in the JASNA collection as well as multiple primary source databases continue to yield very few relevant results. I would like to engage my group members in this search and see what they are able to find.