Professor Devoney Looser

speaker

189 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 21 Feb

Professor Devoney Looser’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 1.

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Secret Life of Books · Jane Austen's Birthday: why everyone wants to party with Jane · 21 Feb 2026 podcast

Also, the place in the novel where there's a pushback from people who consider themselves her betters, it comes from Lady Catherine, from a woman.

And I think that's also a really fascinating choice.

It's making it possible for those scenes to be read as not quite as scary.

Yeah.

Right.

And not to let Mr. Bennett off the hook himself either, but...

Yes.

You know, I do think so much of the attention is on women's interiority and women's psychology that we don't often know what's going on in the heads of the heroes, much less the fathers.

You know, and in Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot is so terrible, just so terrible.

Maybe only outdone by Fanny Price's father in Mansfield Park, who is literally telling vulgar jokes about his daughter as she walks around the house.

I mean, reread that section.

So, you know, I think Mr. Dashwood at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility, right, we see him for just a short time and we get that he hasn't exactly been able to plan well, but he at least seems concerned about the women's economic well-being, right?

I think some of both.

I think the way I heard it most directly is just that people who are part of these celebrations just felt so grateful to have something that was joyful.

And where there could be a kind of step away from joy.

current problems to talk about past problems, right?

Or to talk about past happiness.

That was really coming through for me, the idea that this was a space of joy.

And I think also, unlike the present moment, a place where people across many political, you know, across the political spectrum could come together.

I don't think that part of it was said out loud quite so much.

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