About the Reading Jane Austen Through The Lens of Faith course
Jane Austen had a deep, though very private, Christian faith. Reading her novels through the lens of faith can uncover many riches.
This course will explore the context of Jane Austen’s Christian faith and enable us to reflect on how our own faith can both inform and be informed by reading her writings.
We will look in depth at Jane Austen’s life and the nature of her faith within the context of her time on Friday evening. Saturday morning sessions will focus on Pride and Prejudice with Mansfield Park on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday evening there will be an optional screening of the 1995 BBC Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds.
There will be two shorter sessions on Sunday morning (on Persuasion and Jane Austen’s prayers) to allow those who wish to attend Salisbury Cathedral’s 10.30am service to do so.
About the Course Leader
The Revd Paula Hollingsworth is the author of The Spirituality of Jane Austen (Lion Hudson 2017). She has long had a love of literature and developed her interest in the relationship between novels and spirituality during her MA in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College. She is an Anglican priest, ordained in 1994 among the first cohort of women priests in the Church of England. She teaches and gives talks on Jane Austen and is Chaplain at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.