Mary Favret
John’s Hopkins University
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
Contact Information
Mary Favret, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, John’s Hopkins University
As part of this year's Humanities Summit, Farvet will give her talk titled “Jane Austen’s Object World” Thursday, March 26, Coe Library 506 from 5:30-7:00 pm.
Mary Favret, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, is Allen Grossman Professor of English
and Affiliate Faculty of the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Johns
Hopkins University. Her talk on “Jane Austen’s Object World” observes that Jane Austen’s
face and figure have been affixed to ordinary objects of all sorts that circulate
across the globe: books, t-shirts, coffee mugs, stuffed dolls, stamps and pound notes.
But what role do objects play in the work Austen creates? In fiction renowned for
its dialogue and ability to track the inner movements of a character’s mind, who really
cares about things? If we removed the objects from the novels, what would be lost?
This lecture offers a wide survey of the novels written by Jane Austen, and asks what
values the novelist or her characters place on the object world.
