Beyond ritual: gender visibility and the commemoration of Jane Austen across cultural contexts

This article contends that commemorations of women's achievements should not be dichotomized as either genuine empowerment or mere ritual. Using the commemoration of Jane Austen as a case study, gender visibility is conceptualized as an ongoing institutional process rather than a singular event. Three institutional tracks are identified: heritage sites, hybrid fan-scholar communities, and academic institutions, spanning the UK, US, and Uzbekistan. Drawing on Durkheim's and Collins's sociology of ritual, as well as feminist memory scholarship, the analysis demonstrates that symbolic recognition and structural change are differentiated outcomes shaped by institutional form rather than competing judgments of a single event. The article further explores the implications of this framework for tokenism, intersectionality, and canon change.