The Burke- Austen Scholar-in-Residence for the 2015-2016, Kathleen M. Anderson, gave a lecture titled “Emma as Medieval Queen: Jane Austen’s Glorification of Female Hospitality,” which focused on Austen’s allusion to medieval traditions and symbols in Emma.

 Anderson is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University and a specialist in 19th-century British literature. She is the author of Jane Austen’s Guide to Thrift and a number of scholarly and popular essays on Austen that have appeared in such publications as Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, Persuasions On-Line, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, European Romantic Review, Victorian Poetry, Sensibilities, and Renascence. Her nonfiction essays, including “Why Cornel West Loves Jane Austen,” have appeared in The Huffington Post, Christianity Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, Teen Magazine, and the collection, Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global. Anderson is working on a study about female characters and gender issues in Austen’s work.