Jane Austen and Philosophy

Edited by Mimi Marinucci

Generations of readers have fallen in love with Jane Austen’s timeless tales of eighteenth-century English life. Even casual readers comprehend that these classic novels are not just love stories. They offer keen insights into various aspects of the human condition, such as interpersonal relationships, social conventions, and morality. Jane Austen and Philosophy offers all fans of Austen’s work an introduction to the incredible depth of this English novelist’s stories by probing, for example, the struggles of Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, Emma Woodhouse, and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they face societal pressures and their own desires. As the second book in the new Great Authors and Philosophy series,Jane Austen and Philosophy explores questions about morality and duty, propriety and dignity, and obligation and happiness that sheds new light on the works of this classic author and reveals deep issues still relevant to the men and women of society today.

Contributions by Charles Bane, Vittorio Bufacchi, Nancy Marck Cantwell, Eva Dadlez, Kathleen Dougherty, Keith Dromm, Suzie Gibson, Richard Gilmore, A.G. Holdier, Christopher Ketcham, David LaRocca, William Lindenmuth, Rita Oliveira, Elizabeth Olson, Janelle Pötzsch, Amanda Riter, Charles Taliaferro, Sally Winkle, and Andrea Zanin

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 266 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-5709-2 • Paperback • November 2016 • $19.95 • (£14.99)

978-1-4422-5710-8 • eBook • November 2016 • $18.99 • (£14.99)

Series: Great Authors and Philosophy

Subjects: Philosophy / Essays, Philosophy / Social, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature

Jane Austen and Philosophy

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Generations of readers have fallen in love with Jane Austen’s timeless tales of eighteenth-century English life. Even casual readers comprehend that these classic novels are not just love stories. They offer keen insights into various aspects of the human condition, such as interpersonal relationships, social conventions, and morality. Jane Austen and Philosophy offers all fans of Austen’s work an introduction to the incredible depth of this English novelist’s stories by probing, for example, the struggles of Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, Emma Woodhouse, and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they face societal pressures and their own desires. As the second book in the new Great Authors and Philosophy series,Jane Austen and Philosophy explores questions about morality and duty, propriety and dignity, and obligation and happiness that sheds new light on the works of this classic author and reveals deep issues still relevant to the men and women of society today.

Contributions by Charles Bane, Vittorio Bufacchi, Nancy Marck Cantwell, Eva Dadlez, Kathleen Dougherty, Keith Dromm, Suzie Gibson, Richard Gilmore, A.G. Holdier, Christopher Ketcham, David LaRocca, William Lindenmuth, Rita Oliveira, Elizabeth Olson, Janelle Pötzsch, Amanda Riter, Charles Taliaferro, Sally Winkle, and Andrea Zanin

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 266 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-5709-2 • Paperback • November 2016 • $19.95 • (£14.99)

978-1-4422-5710-8 • eBook • November 2016 • $18.99 • (£14.99)

Series: Great Authors and Philosophy

Subjects: Philosophy / Essays, Philosophy / Social, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature

Author

Mimi Marinucci is a professor of philosophy and women’s and gender studies at Eastern Washington University. She resides in Cheney, WA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: “How Much Sooner One Tires of Anything” than of Jane Austen -- Mimi Marinucci

Part I. Love and Marriage
1 Love in the Time of Epistemic Injustice -- Vittorio Bufacchi
2 Can there be Sense without Sensibility? The Middle Road to Love and Marriage in Jane Austen -- Sally Winkle
3 Love, Marriage and Dialectics in the Novels of Jane Austen -- Suzie Gibson
4 Beyond Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austin and Friedrich Nietzsche on What Makes a Happy Marriage -- William A. Lindenmuth
5 Marriage and Friendship in Jane Austen: Self-knowledge, Virtue, and the “Second Self” -- Kathleen Dougherty

Part II. Morality and Virtue
6 Finding Happiness at Hartfield -- Janelle Pötzsch
7 The Last Great Representative of the Virtues: MacIntyre after Austen -- David LaRocca
8 Jane Austen on Moral Luck -- Eva Dadlez

Part III. Wealth and Class
9 Women Owning Property: The Great Lady in Jane Austen -- Rita Oliveira
10 Deconstructing Entailment -- Christopher Ketcham
11 “Pictures of Perfection Make Me Sick and Wicked”: Privilege and Parody in Emma -- Nancy Marck Cantwell
12 “The Middle Classes at Play”: Austen and Marx Go to Hollywood -- Charles Bane

Part IV. Concepts and Clarifications
13 Do You Want to Know a Secret? The Immorality and Morality of Secrets and the Subversive Jane Austen -- Elizabeth Olson and Charles Taliaferro
14 Persuasion, Influence, and Over-Persuasion -- Keith Dromm and Heather Salter
15 The Language Games of Persuasion -- Richard Gilmore

Part V. Monsters and Zombies
16 Dead and Alive: Austen’s Role in Mashup Literature -- Amanda Riter
17 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Regency, Repression, and Roundhouse Kicks -- Andrea Zanin
18 “Till This Moment I Never Knew Myself”: On Identities and Zombies -- A.G. Holdier

Index
About the Contributors

Features

Find out why:
- Sense & Sensibility is a proto-feminist vision of love and marriage.
- Emma illustrates Aristotle’s conceptions of happiness and friendship.
- Mansfield Park demonstrates the ethical phenomenon of “moral luck.”
- Persuasion suggests that secrecy and fickleness can be virtues rather than vices.
- Pride & Prejudice mashups with zombies reveal hidden truths about Victorian identity and consciousness.

Jane Austen and Philosophy

Edited by Mimi Marinucci

Jane Austen and Philosophy

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