A new exhibit marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth will open on April 7 in Baker-Berry Library, with a celebration 10 days later featuring short talks by its creators—students from English and creative writing professor Carolyn Dever's first-year seminar, Reading Jane Austen.
The "For Love or Money? Jane Austen at 250" exhibit explores four of the writer's major novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion, showcasing the students' deep engagement with the books and Dartmouth's rich collection of resources related to 19th- and early 20th-century English literature.
Max Liedtka '28, of Cleona, Pa., says curating a public exhibit as a first-year student was "a very Dartmouth moment."
"I don't know that I could have done this anywhere else," Liedtka says.
First-Year Seminars, required for all students, represent a variety of disciplines but share common components: intensive writing, independent research, and small group discussion.
In addition to writing several papers, students in Dever's winter term class also worked in groups to produce interactive presentations and select and label materials for their exhibit cases, one for each novel.
The exhibition on Baker-Berry Main Street includes first editions of Austen's books and other printed material contemporary to that time, such as sheet music for popular songs, books on gardening and "ladies' conduct," and a map of England reflecting towns the characters visited.
Austen, whose work has inspired countless spinoffs, films, and miniseries, is a "perfect subject" for a first-year seminar, says Dever.
"Readers tend to assume that they know what she represents and that she's easy to read, but once you dig past the first layer, she's incredibly challenging, because she's a brilliant satirist and uses irony," Dever says. "Once students have begun to understand how to read Austen strategically, they have the chance to see that the books are about so much more than what they thought."
Austen was born in Hampshire, England, in 1775, the daughter of a minister. While her books explore themes of love and romance, they are really about money and the economic challenges women faced at the time, and still to a large degree today, she says, which explains why the author continues to be widely read more than 200 years after her death at age 41.
"Austen is writing wickedly witty and funny—if you get it—satires of sectors of the culture that would hold women down," Dever says.
Throughout the term, the class worked closely with Jay Satterfield, head of Rauner Special Collections Library, and Laura Barrett, head of teaching and learning at Dartmouth Libraries, learning to interact with primary source materials, creating citations, and developing the exhibit, a central component of the class that required uniquely challenging writing skills.
Unlike writing a paper for a professor who is usually a world-class expert on their subject, with an exhibit, "you're writing for anybody who happens to stop by," Satterfield says.
For the Austen displays, that includes people who are unfamiliar with the author and those "who worship her," he says. "It's really hard to reorient yourself to a completely different style of writing and communicating."
The groups' challenging task was to create 50-word labels for each of their items, and 200-word labels explaining their case as a whole, carefully considering what to include and what to leave out.
Barrett says they worked hard to cement their new skill, supporting one another along the way, with "incredible" results.
The students presented enough contextual information to engage a range of readers, posed questions, and included emotion and contemporary references so readers "could really connect," she says. "They did all of that very, very well."
Liedtka, whose group focused on Emma, says he enjoyed working with his group, and appreciates the tone Dever set for the rigorous, discussion-based course.
"She makes herself very approachable, not just outside of class, with office hours, but in class," he says. "There's a comfort there."
Scarlet Niles '28, who was also in the Emma group, says she has gained beneficial new skills and a new favorite author.
"I have a whole group of friends, and I'm really close to the professor now, so it was definitely a very special experience," says Niles, who is from Key West, Fla. "I think we were all very sad leaving class that last day."
The April 17 celebration in Baker-Berry Library will run from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. The exhibit, organized by temporary exhibits designer Samantha Milnes, will be on display April 7 through July 11.