This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. An Austen enthusiast might attend the birthday ball at the Alton Assembly Rooms in Hampshire or take an Austen-themed walking tour. They might dance at the Pump Rooms in Bath, a city with strong Austen connections, or in Utah, which has none.
These kinds of immersive events tend to surge in times of social and economic fragility. In part, this may be due to a particular form of nostalgia that psychologists have noted helps to mitigate loneliness and forge social connection.
During the pandemic, the Netflix show Bridgerton marked a revival of Austen-adjacent worlds. Fandoms that invite participation function like virtual realities, offering the kind of immersion we might expect from a headset and game console. But is this merely escapism, or do such immersible worlds offer ways of experiencing the present differently and more reflectively?
