On June 22-23, the Jane Austen Bicentenary student conference takes place in the Alte Mensa (Wilhelmsplatz). A truly interesting programme with talks on very diverse aspects of "Austen in a Global Context" awaits student and non-student participants alike (see link on the right). Everyone is cordially invited to come and join us for a round of listening to student research, discussing student poster presentations, talking about Austen then and now and, of course, tea, coffee, biscuits, cake, apples and the like.

The conference warming will be on Thursday, June 22, from 5pm in the Department's Medienraum; a showing of Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice takes centre stage, but there will be enough time for socialising.

On Friday we start early, to squeeze everything into one day, with a slot for registration (8.30-9am), followed by a welcome address and the first conference highlight, the keynote by Dr. Gabrielle Malcolm on "Jane Austen Fan Culture" which she is an expert in. We will then embark on rounds of very interesting student talks and poster presentations, liberally broken up by coffee and tea breaks.

Please note: this is a STUDENT conference: organised by students, with student participants, so we would also like a student audience. Feel free to bring along anyone who is interested in Jane Austen or in English literature (or student conferences!) - spread the word! Even if you will not take part in all of the events, we'll be happy to see you. Please send an informal email to Katharina Nambula so that we know roughly how many biscuits we have to get (listening to other people talking on a rumbling stomach is not very enjoyable!).

Looking forward to seeing many of you on June 22-23!