Hi, everybody. Vanessa here. We have another special bonus episode for you today.

This is in addition to our regular episode, not instead of,

and what you're going to hear is an extended interview. As is probably obvious to you,

I have the incredible opportunity of interviewing dozens of incredible professors

in various experts. Ariana Nettelman, our producer, does research on finding these professors

and helps me prepare for them, and then is in the recordings with me. So she's very much

part of this process. And what I get to do is talk to just like the greatest minds

about their research and how it pertains to this project that we're doing with live from

Bemberley. So what you'll hear over the course of a season is several clips from my conversation

with someone like Aisha Ramashandran or Tara Menon. But you'll hear those highly edited

across my opening essays. But what you don't get to hear is the back and forth that we have,

the laughter they're celebrating and the joy of how much they love Pride and Prejudice in Jane

Austin. But where you do get to hear those is on our Patreon. They are part of our $5 a month

tier, our Kitty Bennett tier. And what we're going to play for you today is a sample of one of those

conversations. This is a conversation that Ariana and I had with Claudia Johnson, who you hear from a

lot. She is the first person who we interviewed for live from Bemberley. And so this was at the

very beginning of our research on Pride and Prejudice. And I remember where I was sitting even though

this was, I mean, months and months and months ago now I was sitting, I was visiting my parents

in California. So my audio is not great. And I was just having the time of my life talking to

Professor Johnson. And she's just so brilliant. And what you'll also hear is not just her passion

for Austin. But you'll hear what a wonderful teacher she is. She really wanted to know what

Ariana and I thought. And she was so engaged. And she was so interested in learning more about Austin.

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