Season Six: Jane Austen’s Persuasion
July 2026 – Present
For Season 6, Hot and Bothered is returning to its roots with a classic romance: Jane Austen's Persuasion. Many readers consider Persuasion Austen's most romantic novel. As a podcast obsessed with romance (and Austen), it was only a matter of time before we answered its siren call.
Joining Vanessa Zoltan this season is her longtime mentor, Harvard Divinity School Professor Dr. Stephanie Paulsell. Together, they'll read Persuasion one chapter at a time, asking what Austen's timeless novel can teach us about grief, beauty, aging, and—of course—love.
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We're returning to our roots with Season 6 of Hot and Bothered – reading classic romance literature. This season, Vanessa Zoltan will be joined by her mentor Dr. Stephanie Paulsell to read Jane Austen's Persuasion one chapter at a time. If you want to be part of the conversation, you can join us for our weekly class which will follow each episode of the podcast.
An Introduction
Virginia Woolf called Persuasion "the most deeply felt of Jane Austen's novels." It may also be her most difficult novel. This season, we're taking it slowly, reading one chapter each week and lingering over Austen's extraordinary sentences together.
Join Vanessa Zoltan and the Rev. Dr. Stephanie Paulsell as they explore Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth's second-chance love story while asking timeless questions about grief, goodness, beauty, yearning, and what it means to find your way in a world that doesn't always see your worth.
If you want to be part of the conversation, you can join us for our weekly class which will follow each episode of the podcast. This class also free for our $50/month patrons on our Patreon, which you can join here.
The Ancient and Respectable Family
We meet The Elliots in Chapter 1 of Persuasion and Vanessa and Stephanie Paulsell introduce our themes for this season. Every week we'll be discussing Anne's moral compass, and where we see ridiculousness, beauty, and grief in the chapter.
This week, Dr. Amy King joins us at the end of the episode to help us understand how the word 'bloom' is operating in this book.
They Must Retrench
In Chapter 2 of Persuasion the Elliots and their close friends try to strategize about the family's pressing debt. This week we're joined by one of our closest friends (and our former co-host), Dr. Hannah McGregor, to dissect the chapter.
Dr. Alexander Wakelam also returns at the end of the episode to teach us more about debt in the early 19th century.
Expert Voices Include
Roxanne Eberle, University of Georgia
Rae Greiner, Indiana University, Bloomington
Claudia Johnson, Princeton University
Deidre Lynch, Harvard University