The New Joys of Old Media
Why spending a little time out of OUR time can be so refreshing
Hello, Dames Nationals!
Dame Margaret here with a bonus Wednesday post to announce a couple fun things. First up: I appeared on today’s episode of with to talk about one of my great joys in life— watching old movies. Click here to listen wherever you find your podcasts, or listen right here on Substack at the link embedded below:
Then, secondly: in November, I told you that I was leaving behind work I dearly loved, but hoping to find something I could own that would bring me as much joy. And I said that when I found that something, I would share it with you. Well, I have my first attempt at it: through my very own personal website, I am selling spots in a new virtual class dedicated to Jane Austen — Mansfield Park: Adaptation as Empathy.
For seven weeks this spring, I will gather with my teaching assistant and the heartfelt nerds who elect to join us to discuss Mansfield Park, Jane Austen’s darkest novel. We will also view and discuss two films related to it— Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation of the novel and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, a 1990 comedy of manners set amidst contemporary New York City debutants with deliberate thematic links to Austen’s novel. Using the approach I developed with my 2021 class on Jane Austen’s Emma, we’ll use these films for inspiration as we play with adapting Mansfield Park ourselves. Through in-class writing exercises, we’ll re-imagine scenes from new perspectives, in different time periods, with different stakes, and see how these changes shift our feelings about the original text. When we applied this strategy to Emma, I came away feeling sympathy for Frank Churchill— I am both excited and scared to see if anyone can make me feel as much for Mansfield Park’s Mrs. Norris.
In some ways, I am starting my new business venture on hard mode— Mansfield Park is one of Austen’s lesser-read books, and possibly the least popular novel of her main six. But it’s simply the text of hers that speaks to me the most at this moment. Fanny Price is not a typical heroine— she is not a naturally strong, brave, or bold woman. She does not seek out conflict because every barb flung at her sticks and stings, whether it’s legitimate or not. But her moral clarity is simply too great to allow her to acquiesce to anything she believes is wrong, even when she truly wishes she could. Looking at the world right now, I suspect you can see why such a character would feel so important to me right now.
And this is the uniting theme of both my love of old movies and this new class— both serve as reminders that while the problems we are facing right now are terrifying, they are not entirely unprecedented. Hypocrisy has looked the same for centuries and in every generation, it has flourished for the same reason: because having a strong moral character is immensely uncomfortable when no one around you does. I hope that considering that discomfort and observing what Fanny produces by persevering through it will be fruitful work for me and everyone who chooses to participate in this course.
Already among the folks who’ve signed up for the class, we have people who love the novel passionately and people who’ve never read it, which is just the kind of mix I think produces the best conversations. If this sounds fun to you, please consider joining the class. And, of course, if you know of anyone else who might enjoy it, please send this email along to them. The more Dames Nationals the class contains, the better I know it will be.
XOXO/ Dame Margaret