6 Degrees of Jane Austen

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Anchor | Breaker | Castbox | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public

Don’t see your platform of choice? Click play above!

It's our first audience participation episode – and our first anniversary! For the last few months, we took suggestions on social media of topics that you wanted us to connect to Jane Austen. How did we do?

Transcript

6 Degrees of Jane Austen | Bonus Episode

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers,

Emily: and I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today, we're finding ways to connect random topics suggested by listeners back to Jane Austen.

Emily: I am so excited about this. Starting a few months ago, we began collecting suggestions from listeners on social media of just the most outrageous topics that y'all could come up with to make us connect to Jane Austen, because we've already done so many unexpected things, especially with Lauren's pop culture connections.

Lauren: Happy to oblige. And y'all delivered. We have some, some truly outlandish topics to connect today.

Emily: Trulyoutlandish. We have each chosen three.

Lauren: We had patrons vote on which six we're going to do. So rather than having us choose, because we had no idea how to pick. We had them vote on which ones they wanted to hear us talk about. Once we had those top six, then we divided the six between the two of us.

So Emily has three and I have three, and we know which topics we were each assigned, but we don't know what our connections are yet. So it'll be a surprise.

Emily: So first off, thank you so much to everyone who sent in suggestions. Some of them were incredibly off the wall. I, I'm very sad that we're not going to get to a couple of them, but I'm keeping a running list for future six degrees games.

But then also, especially thank you to all of the patrons who voted. That is one of the, the perks that you get for joining our Patreon is that you'll get voting rights on any listener, chosen segments in the future. This is the first time that, that we were able to set up a poll. And it's very exciting.

So thank you everyone who [00:02:00] contributed.

Lauren: Yes. And we will be doing more six degrees of Jane Austen in the future, probably after each book that we complete. So it'll be interesting to see what other topics we get. And so if yours wasn't picked this round, like Emily said we're keeping a running list and so never fear, it may show up in a future six degrees of Jane Austen episode.

We should also mention that this is not a traditional six degrees game. So rather than going through and finding the connections, like when you say like, oh, a friend of a friend is two degrees of separation away from us, we're kind of interpreting it more loosely. So kind of the way that we do pop culture connections on the podcast, where we're finding ways that we can make it relatable to Jane Austen, rather than going through the actual six degrees of going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole to see how it connects.

Emily: Yeah, but I, I think this is going to come up with some more interesting conversations. And hopefully you guys will also contribute to these conversations. We love talking to everybody on social media. It's super fun. I mean, that's, you know, we're doing this for the community, so it's great to see.

In addition to being just a celebration of how weird we can get with our topics. This is, this episode is also kind of doubling as our first anniversary because our first episode was released December 16th, 2020!

Lauren: Happy one year to us!

Emily: Happy birthday to us.

Lauren: Oh, my god, it went so fast.

Emily: It really did. I mean, like it's been a hell of a year, but...

Lauren: Yeah, it is... this has been a fantastic first year of podcasting. I'm glad we get to do this off the wall type of thing to celebrate our off the wall kind of podcast.

Emily: It's so great.

Lauren: I'm very happy. Thank you all for hanging out with us for a year.

Emily: Yes, thank you. It's been absolutely wonderful. And we're looking forward to the next several years as well, cause you know, we have to get through the novels.

Lauren: And it's going to take us a bit, so, yep. You're stuck with us for a couple of years.

Emily: All right. [00:04:00] Now for some reason we did not decide in advance who's going first.

Lauren: Oh, I say ABC order. So you go first.

Emily: Not reverse?

Lauren: No.

Emily: All right. Well, I. We should at least be able to, to choose. Should we choose our own order of topics or do we want to choose for each other?

Lauren: Let's choose for each other.

Emily: Okay. All right. So my topics are Parks and Recreation, the television show, socialism, and comic books. So, Lauren, what do you want to hear from.

Lauren: I'm going to go Parks and Recreation.

Emily: Parks and Rec. Okay. All right. So sitting down to try and connect Parks and Rec to Jane Austen, it, it took me a minute to think about it because I mean, for one, I've seen the entirety of Parks and Recreation... [unintelligible noise] times.

So there's a lot of material to go off of, but especially because we just finished Pride and Prejudice. The thing that struck me as the connection I wanted to do was the relationship between Leslie and Ben.

Lauren: Oh, do tell.

Emily: So the main thing is the way that their story arc begins and how similar it comes off as being to Lizzie and Darcy as being antagonism.

So for those of you who are not familiar with Parks and Recreation, I, I'm sorry if you haven't seen it. The show ended like six years ago. So spoilers, I guess for like season four.

Lauren: Skip ahead. Just skip ahead in this podcast episode, if you haven't seen it.

Emily: So Leslie Knope is the main character. She's the protagonist, she's the focus of the show.

She's just like a city government employee and her eventual love interest is Ben Wyatt, who, when he makes his first appearance on the show, has come in as a state auditor to fix the city's finances. And it starts [00:06:00] out completely antagonistic because she reads the situation as, "you've come here to fuck up everything I love. And I am going to make everything worse for you."

Whereas he's just there doing his job, but because he, he comes off similarly to Darcy as like, just. Just the way he presents himself in like this new situation. He's like, okay, I know I'm coming in to do a lot of things that you are going to be unhappy about.

And so he's, he's not making an attempt to be personable also because his partner, Chris Traeger is the personable one.

Lauren: It's a good cop, bad cop.

Emily: It is. It is. Oh my God. It's Bingley and Darcy. Chris Traeger is Charles Bingley.

Lauren: The golden retrievers!

Jane Bennet. You have made me literally the happiest man on earth.

Emily: Okay. Okay. We'll have to work out this AU later. But it was, it was mostly that, that initial interaction that reminded me of, of Lizzie and Darcy. And so that's, that's my connection is that initial antagonism, as they meet. Now, their, their story arc, their love story is completely different because like, they're actually both like good people and very compatible.

Leslie and Ben are. So like he doesn't need to learn how to not be an asshole. He is not an asshole. It's just the context in which they first meet. But that's, that's my connection between between Parks and Rec and Pride and Prejudice.

Lauren: I love it. That's perfect, actually.

Emily: Yeah, I'm, I'm never going to stop thinking about Chris and Bingley.

Lauren: That is a perfect...

Emily: that was perfect.

Lauren: That's a one-to-one analogy right there.

Emily: Tell me a modern AU Bingley wouldn't be running 10 Ks every day at lunch.

Lauren: 10000%.

Okay. So it is now your turn to choose a topic for me. So the topics that I had were the seven deadly [00:08:00] sins, Afrofuturism and Scandinavian metal. How these were the three of them I ended up with, I have no idea, but those were the options.

Emily: Those are, those are tough. First because I just, I want it. I want it now.

Let's go with Scandinavian metal.

Lauren: Yeah. Okay. All right. So I had never listened to Scandinavian metal before today. I listen to all types of music, but far and away the genre which I listen to most is pop music. Like, three of my most top played artists were Little Mix, Beyonce, and Doja Cat. Like, just to give you an idea of what is usually coming through my headphones at any given time.

So Scandinavian metal was pretty far from that. So I had to do some research because I had no idea what it was that I was meant to be talking about. And so the main definition of Scandinavian metal is music that comes from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. And then also sometimes Finland and Iceland, but Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are usually the three main countries that we're talking about when it comes to Scandinavian metal.

There's different sub genres within that as well. So like black or Viking metal is from Norway and that's characterized as being like really frenzied with haunting piano melodies. And then you can also have darker like, death metal from Sweden. And there was a really good quote from the Scandinavian Standard, thank you so much for helping me learn about Scandinavian metal because I did not know.

And that was what really helped me start thinking about how I was going to connect it back to Jane Austen, because one of the things that they said was, "why do Scandinavians love metal music? It could be that it allows an otherwise reserved people a way to express big feelings. The sound certainly stands in stark contrast to the way that we perceive the calm and collected Scandinavian culture. And yet it has grown deep and meaningful roots in the region."

And so what I was thinking of was, you know, what outlets do Austen characters have to [00:10:00] express those big feelings and those emotions, because they don't have the same outlet that metal allows you, where you can express that like, really primal rage and anger in a way that's like, that's safe to do so, I guess?

I want to say socially acceptable to do. I mean, in, in certain circles, I think sometimes nine times out of 10 people give metal heads, like a, side-eye not realizing that they're like really nice people and they may just listen to like the death screaming and don't really know what's happening.

And because of course our Austen characters are all British, who are also characterized as also very reserved, you know, you have that infamous stiff upper lip. And a lot of times what we see in the books that we have read for Austen is that characters can express like thoughts and emotions through like, letter writing, where they're alone with their thoughts and can gather it and can express themselves emotionally, or in sometimes emotional, sometimes planned speeches, but there's not really avenues where they're able to like, let loose and let their hair down.

And so I was thinking about like, how would things be different if they did have that kind of outlet? And then also, how would the stories change if women were just allowed to scream? Like with, with no self-censoring of their own emotion?

I mean, you can ask how would all of history change if women were allowed to scream and be primal in our rage, the course of history would shift. But I was thinking specifically, like with Elinor taking it back to Sense and Sensibility, I think she could have really benefited from something like that to have an outlet. Because Marianne is in touch with her emotions regardless, but Elinor does not have that.

So I was thinking that Elinor and Colonel Brandon specifically, would be like secret metal heads. Because that's where they allow themselves to like let loose and to let go of all that repression. Never in actual social situations, because that's just not who they're, who they [00:12:00] are as people. But then if such a thing as Scandinavian metal existed in Regency England, they would have a hundred percent would be at a metal concert because that's where they feel like they can let go of all that, like buttoned up propriety and can just go and just scream and let out all their rage and angst and stress.

And then go back home and be fine.

Emily: Wow. I love that. And also, I really love the idea of both Elinor and Colonel Brandon being metal heads.

Lauren: Right. I feel like that would be a good bonding experience for them.

Emily: Yes. I maintain that they should be besties. And I have seen Pod and Prejudice, I guess, who have just gotten to certain points of Sense and Sensibility talking about how Elinor and Colonel Brandon need to be like besties, who just kiss sometimes, which I fully support.

I did ship them. I mean, I kind of still do. But yeah. Yes, they could definitely bond over a mosh pit.

Lauren: I could totally see it. Also listened to some Scandinavian metal at work today. Cause I was trying to figure out what it was that I was going to listen to some of those songs are now in my rotation, I liked it. Which was, like, really surprising, honestly, but I guess, you know what, we're going to go from pop punk to Scandinavian metal I guess. We're just going to have a variety of musical tastes.

Emily: Why not?

Lauren: Why not? So. Would recommend, can send you the playlist. Also, whoever suggested that we do Scandinavian metal, if you have a playlist that you would like to send to us, please send it.

All right. Let's see. What do I want to choose for you next?

Emily: Socialism and comic books.

Lauren: Let's go comic books.

Emily: All right.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: So I like that you had a quote for Scandi metal. Because I also have a quote for comic books because this is actually a connection that people have tenuously made before.

Lauren: Oh?

Emily: So from Marshall McLuhan in 1954, "If there is a truism in the history of human communication, it is that any [00:14:00] innovation in the external means of communication brings in its train shock on shock of social change."

So my connection is that comic books in the early mid 20th century were a similarly innovative form of media to novels in the early 19th century.

Lauren: Ooh. Okay.

Emily: Yeah, so both novels and comic books have been seen during their relative infancy as being sort of lower class and being disparaged. And because they open up different forms of media to different groups of people because they are more accessible, they are equated with being sort of crude forms and being lesser than the established media that the educated higher classes want to be associated with.

Lauren: That's so good. Cause I feel like even with comic book adaptations becoming such huge box office successes, people still look down on comics themselves and don't see it as a valid art form or valid literature, or it's not a real book. Why is it not a real book because there's added art? That doesn't make any sense.

Emily: And we still see that with a lot of novels as well, depending on the genre, because if it's not literary fiction--

Lauren: --romance--

Emily: and incomprehensible, it's, you know, palaver for the masses and it's not worth anything, but I think that's bullshit. But yeah, novels and comic books being looked down on by people who consider themselves to be highly cultured because it's growing the demographic of people who are interested in these [00:16:00] kinds of art forms.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: We see that with video games, too.

Lauren: 100%.

Emily: Because it's appealing to a group of people that are not considered to be, you know, the better sort. Then obviously the art associated with them must also be worthless.

Lauren: Right. I, yeah. You know what, their loss. They miss out on so much wonderful art by not considering things that aren't like, in the academy.

Emily: So yeah, that's my comic book connection.

Lauren: I love it. I'm a fan. I'm comic fan, comic book fan. Okay. Seven deadly sins or Afrofuturism.

Emily: Let's do sins.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: Let's keep Afrofuturism for last.

Lauren: Good idea. All right. So for seven deadly sins, which as a refresher, if you do not have religious trauma, you might not know this. The seven deadly sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

And so what I did was I chose a Jane Austen character from either Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice to match each one of the sins. And I only did those two books since those are the two that we've read. I accept edits and editorializing. Let me know if you disagree with any of these picks. I've-- you could pick multiple for each one, these were just the ones that I felt like fit.

So for pride, we just finished Pride and Prejudice. We obviously have two main contenders for who pride could be. I chose Elizabeth Bennet for pride cause she almost blocked her own--

Emily: the spicy take!

Lauren: She blocked her own blessings. Very nearly by being prideful.

She really just closed herself off to a lot of opportunities and, you know, almost hurt Charlotte by being proud, hurt herself by being proud and not wanting to admit when she was wrong or being unwilling to see certain things. And because she hurt herself [00:18:00] and others, I'm choosing pride as, as her, as her deadly sin.

Could've gone either way, but I'm going for, going for Elizabeth. You'll also see why in a moment. For greed, I went, threw it back to our hate club member, Fanny Dashwood.

Emily: Yesssss. Hate Club forever!

Lauren: Hate Club forever, because she is so greedy. Her husband's father isn't even like, cold in the dirt and she's already figuring out how to take all of the money that's supposed to be given to his daughters and other legitimate heirs.

She's like, nah, screw you. How much money do I get? And how can I continue to cheat you out of what you're owed? That sounds like greed to me and very worthy of her being named the character that goes for greed on seven deadly sins.

Emily: I agree. I mean, that was, that was one of the very first like character introductions in Sense and Sensibility and I'm still heated about how terrible she is. So excellently chosen.

Lauren: I mean, a well-deserved hate club person. Just, just why. For lust, also sticking with Sense and Sensibility. I went to Willoughby.

Emily: Oh, very good.

Lauren: Because man could not keep it in his pants and impregnated a 15 year old girl. So we're going with lust for Willoughby.

Like, can you, can you not, can you, can you pause from lusting after literal children for just a moment, please? Like, what are you, what are you doing? Envy feel like is also a spicy take. So I put for envy, I put Mrs. Bennet.

Emily: Ooh.

Lauren: Because she's always comparing what she has to everyone else and is always talking about how much she has or how much, what do the Lucases have? What does this person have? Ranking her daughters based off of how much money their new husbands are going to have. So I put envy for Mrs. Bennet, because to me that always reads as someone who's not satisfied with what it is that she has or is insecure about it in some way and is always envying people who have more.

Emily: That's also very well chosen, I think.

Lauren: Thank you, thank you. Gluttony was another [00:20:00] difficult one and I also saw that gluttony was also sometimes interpreted as drunkenness. And so this one is just more of like a throwaway because I couldn't really think of a character that fit with gluttony, but because he loves a party, I put, Sir John Middleton.

Emily: As soon as you started bringing up gluttony, it was like, is it going to be John Middleton?

Lauren: Yes, it is. That man loves him a glass of wine. He loves a good party.

Emily: Oh, also another social media comment that we had was fan casting, Snoop Dogg as John Middleton. Which I absolutely support.

Lauren: One hundred thousand percent, so here for it.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: He would, he would, like, fit John Middleton who just wants to party and make sure all the young people have fun.

Emily: Remake of Sense and Sensibility where? It's time.

Lauren: With Snoop Dogg.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Please and thank you. Okay. And then for wrath, the reason why I have Elizabeth has pride is because I put Mr. Darcy as wrath.

Emily: Oh.

Lauren: Because I had him as pride first and then I got down to wrath and I switched it. So I put that because I feel like he is the type of person to let his anger eat away at him and ruin his own happiness.

And so it could literally be a deadly sin for him in that he's so focused on his own anger and letting his anger consume him, that he doesn't let go of grudges and let himself be happy. He's dwelling on things that make him angry instead of things that make him happy.

Emily: Yeah. That's, that's good. That's a really good, I love these connections.

Lauren: And then my last one is sloth and I put Mr. Bennet.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Cause dude just wants to sit in his library all day.

Emily: It's relatable, but yeah.

Lauren: But yeah, like, you know, do I also wish that I could just sit in a library all day and tune out the rest of the world and all my responsibilities? Yes, absolutely.

Emily: That's the dream.

Lauren: That's the dream. Do I do it? No, because I have responsibilities and people who also are looking for me to do things. But those, those are [00:22:00] my seven deadly sins, my connection. Lizzie is pride. Fanny Dashwood is greed. Willoughby as lust, Mrs. Bennet as envy, Sir John Middleton as the loves to party glutton, Mr. Darcy as wrath and Mr. Bennet as sloth.

Emily: I like all of those. I think they're all excellent. And, but yeah, I agree that there are multiple characters that you could have chosen for any one of those.

Lauren: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of options.

Emily: Yes. Except none for Charlotte Lucas, because, because Charlotte Lucas is flawless and has never done anything wrong in her life.

Lauren: I know this and I love you.

Emily: Hey, there's another Parks and Rec reference!

Lauren: Charlotte and Jane are both flawless. It's fine.

Emily: All right. Last one. We are down to socialism.

Lauren: I'm very excited to hear what you came up with for this.

Emily: So this one is actually more of a direct link than the others, it didn't really have to like dig through connections. Because so first off, just the, the gloss off the top, socialism is a set of multiple philosophies, economic, political, social... it's, it's manifests in a lot of different arenas.

But the connecting factor is a belief that means of production should be socially controlled. And social control can mean a lot of different things. So there there's a lot of nuance within that, but socialism, you can boil that down to social control over means of production. And what is often identified as the sort of inciting moment for our modern iterations of socialism is the French Revolution, which was utterly contemporary with Jane Austen, [00:24:00] because it began at the very end of the 18th century and also ties in pretty directly to some of the themes that we have talked about in the book with war and militarism and colonialism, especially because some of the consequences of the French revolution were things like the Haitian revolution.

And so one part of the presence of the military in England at the time was Britain trying to protect their assets from the ripples of the French revolution and basically different communities undertaking some form of socialism.

Lauren: Damn.

Emily: Yeah. Right. Socialism is not as far off from Jane Austen as people might think.

Lauren: I appreciate that direct line. I always love seeing like the history contexts that we don't think about affecting the events that we see in like our, our accepted or defined narrative of history, I guess.

Emily: I mean, especially when it comes to the very specific social contexts that we see in Austen novels, because it's. I mean, Jane Austen was writing about the context that she knew. So it's fairly narrow, but there's so much going on behind the scenes that contributed to the way society was at that point.

Lauren: Love it.

Emily: I'm so glad. All right. Tell me about Afrofuturism and Jane Austen.

Lauren: All right. So for obvious reasons, this was really hard.

I was really struggling to figure out how do you connect something that is deeply rooted in black culture to Jane Austen, who clearly was not. I didn't really know how I was going to do that. So for people who aren't aware of what Afrofuturism is, it's the re-imagining of a future that is filled with [00:26:00] art and technology and science that's seen through a black lens specifically. I guess like the SparkNotes version is that it connects like the culture of the African diaspora to like science and technology.

And it came from an essay that came out in 1993 by Mark Dery, that was called "Black to the Future", which I love. Can we just, I just want to give a--

Emily: excellent naming scheme there.

Lauren: Just a moment of appreciation for that title. And what makes Afrofuturism different from like your standard science fiction is that it's rooted in like African tradition and identities specifically. So it's not just like, oh, I have a black character in my science fiction novel. And so now it's Afrofuturism. That is not how that works. You have to be rooted in black culture and also find a way to like to celebrate it in your work. So that's what Afrofuturism is, which is why it's very difficult to connect back to Jane Austen.

But where I was thinking of it was Afrofuturism specifically allows like black feminists to design and imagine new futures and possibilities for black women where we're in a culture that kind of tries to put us into a box of what we can and cannot be or what we can and can't achieve. And also allows us to imagine like joyful futures specifically, because often it feels like if we're telling black stories in like, Western culture, it's always rooted in some kind of trauma and sadness. And while it's important to like tell those stories because they were, they are and were real and they happen. It's also important to show that like, we're joyful too. Cause it seems like sometimes people are eager to consume black trauma, not bear witness to, but to consume.

But then not to the joy and the joyful side of things. And Afrofuturism allows people to imagine a joyful future for black people [00:28:00] that's separate from that pain and of that trauma and it's speculative fiction. So it means that you get to create whatever world that you want to. So it doesn't have to be anything that is tainted by like the legacies of racism, because you get to create your own world and you get to think of something else where you get to be joyful and a full person that's separate from all of that.

And what I was thinking of was that... as problematic as it might be to connect white feminism to Afrofuturism, kind of at a loss. But I think in a way, that's also what Jane Austen was able to do with her books for white women in Britain specifically, was to give them a way to like, live vicariously through her novel characters.

So for example, marrying for love was not really something that you could expect, would be part of your life, if you were a woman in Regency England, like you, your goal was to secure a marriage. And if you happen to love each other, then fantastic, but that's less important than making sure that you leave your parents' household, establish your own.

Don't become an old maid. So for women to be able to read Jane Austen's novels and see fully realized female characters and also female characters who get to marry for love. They get to imagine their own futures or get to picture a world where even though it's analogous to their own, you know, like Jane Austen wasn't writing fantasy, she was writing characters who got to make perhaps different choices than the people who were reading those books did. And so it was able to help people imagine something else, even as she was writing about something that was contemporary and realistic fiction. It also inspired different possibilities.

I think. So that is my Afrofuturism connection.

Emily: I mean, I think you get--

Lauren: I struggled.

Emily: I think you did a great job just in, in finding a connection. Yeah, I, no, I can see the, the comparison and obviously not trying to say that afrofuturism [00:30:00] owes anything to those kinds of white feminist escapist fantasies.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: But that there is a similarity in what is trying to be accomplished.

Lauren: Exactly. Because those are two completely different literary traditions.

Emily: Absolutely.

Lauren: But I think you can see how they're both kind of trying to accomplish the same thing of imagining better possibilities, I suppose. Also, for anybody who wants to explore Afrofuturism.

I think a lot of people were introduced to it through like Black Panther, of course, but NK Jemisin has a short story collection called How Long 'Til Black Future Month, 10000% would recommend.

Emily: I've been meaning to read that. Okay.

Lauren: I have a signed copy from the time I interviewed her!

Emily: I'll have to read that during hiatus. Yes, because I, I want to come up with, with plans for black history month next year. So I want to be better prepared.

Lauren: I think you put together a really good content for black history month this year though. I enjoyed it. I thought it was great.

Emily: Well, hopefully it will continue and improve upon that tradition. So.

Lauren: I believe in you.

Emily: But yeah, I like, I like that. That's so cool. I'm also, I'm so glad that we got to talk about Afrofuturism just in general. Outside of the context of trying to connect it to Jane Austen.

Lauren: Me too. It's like, I was really excited to get it. And I was like, oh, yay. I get to talk about Afrofuturism. And then I was like, oh hell, how do I connect that?

Emily: Valid, valid.

Lauren: Cause I'll talk about it. I mean like Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin I love, so like anything that allows black people to imagine ourselves like outside of this. So that was a fun topic for me to be able to relate to.

Emily: That's awesome.

Lauren: Well, this was so fun.

Emily: It was! Thank you again to everyone who suggested topics and who voted on them.

I, I can't wait to see what we get next time.

Lauren: We have, please keep them coming. [00:32:00] We'll accept suggestions just at any time. We'll add them to the running document. So if there's something, we won't get to another six degrees of Jane Austen for another few months. However, if there is something that you're thinking of, right this moment, you don't want to forget, let us know and we'll add it and we'll keep it in mind.

Emily: Yes. And in the meantime, I mean, we're absolutely going to keep making wild connections in regular episodes too. Like, I'm sorry. We talked about Squid Game and Jane Austen. So I think we've set a precedent of talking about weird things.

Lauren: So yes, we will. We will continue to create outlandish connections just in general, but if for an episode dedicated entirely to the things that are so out there, it's going to take some work.

Please let us know.

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane, we're going to be on hiatus until season three begins in February with Mansfield Park, but you can keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in the meantime, starting with our first live tweet of the '95 Pride and Prejudice on Jane Austen's birthday, December 16.

Emily: Which is tomorrow, if you're listening the day this episode's been released. To read a full transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the show notes, the full back catalog and links to all those social media accounts.

Lauren: If you like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, including special events during this break, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis-Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy and our show art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: We'll see you next time.

I have a master's degree and some literary fiction is still completely opaque to me.

Emily: I mean, a lot of it is just bad. It can be high brow and still suck.

Lauren: Sometimes it is. And I [00:34:00] feel like we need to call that out more often.

Emily: I know.

Lauren: I'm like, okay. Yes, you are very smart. But you are not a very good writer and I'm, I'm not putting forth the mental energy for this. I'm so sorry, but I'm just not.