JASP 2025: Interview with Eric Bontempo

In anticipation of JASP 2025 we’ll be interviewing our esteemed staff and speakers. This year’s four-day symposium, JASP 2025: Sensibility and Domesticity, will take place June 19-22, 2025, in historic New Bern, North Carolina. We will be focusing on Austen’s first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, and considering the birth of her career as a published author and taking a transatlantic look at the world into which she was born. Program topics include medicine, birth, and domestic arts in Regency England and colonial North Carolina. We’ll be covering the aforementioned topics and celebrating Austen’s 250th birthday through a wide range of activities including workshops, small-group discussions, and workshops. Our Regency Ball is also not an event to be missed! We can’t wait to celebrate Austen’s 250th birthday with you! 

Our next interviewee is Eric Bontempo. Eric has been involved with JASP since 2018, serving in multiple capacities such as leading group discussions and coordinating the Regency balls. Now in 2025 he is a JASP co-director! For those of you who attend Jane Austen & Co.'s

virtual events Eric would be a very familiar face. He serves as the program's co-director and co-host. Eric is an assistant professor of English at Abilene Christian University.

How long have you been involved in JASP? What is your position? 

This will be my fifth time attending JASP. I first attended in 2018 as a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, and I have been a part of it ever since. I'm now one of the directors, and I also direct Jane Austen & Co.

Which JASP activity are you most looking forward to and why?

I am always most excited for the Regency Ball. It's so much fun to learn some Regency dances, put on a costume, and then dance the night away.

How is JASP honoring Austen's legacy and celebrating her 250th birthday?

This year's JASP is honoring Austen's 250th birthday in many ways, one of which is by reading her very first published novel, Sense and Sensibility. By celebrating Austen's first publication, we are hoping to celebrate the birth of a novelist (though she had been writing stories from her early youth).

Why do you think Austen's Sense and Sensibility is important not only to her body of work but the entire literary canon? Why do you believe people should read it?

So many reasons...but I'll be brief. Sense and Sensibility is important because we get this tremendous foray into Austen's social critique that continues into her later works. The inner lives of Elinor and Marianne take center stage as Austen critiques the social constructs of sense and sensibility, which were hugely influential concepts in the late eighteenth century.

Film still from Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Do you have any favorite scenes from Sense and Sensibility?

The banter between Elinor and Marianne in Vol. 1, Ch. 16 is my absolute favorite:

'Oh!' cried Marianne, 'with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.'

'It is not every one,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.'

What do you love about Jane Austen and her works? 

I love the way that Austen makes readers attend to the non-verbal expressions that her characters make. She takes "reading the room" to a whole new level, and I am a much better reader because of Austen.

Why should people attend JASP 2025? 

For the community! In some ways, JASP resembles a summer camp. We have several excellent keynote lectures that you will get to listen to. But every event on the schedule is aimed at creating space for conversation and collaborative learning. Discussion groups, elevenses, the theatrical and games, etc.--these are precious opportunities to get to know new people and share your love for Jane Austen.

Tickets are still available for JASP 2025. Register here! JASP 2025 is partially supported by a grant from North Carolina Humanities. We hope to see you in New Bern, NC!