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Dr. Jane Suzanne Carroll

Associate Professor (English)
ARTS BUILDING
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Jane Suzanne Carroll

Associate Professor (English)
ARTS BUILDING

 carrolj1@tcd.ie

 3531896 4023


I am an Ussher Associate Professor in Children's Literature at Trinity College Dublin. I hold a B.A. in English Studies (Dub, 2006), and a Ph.D. in Children's Literature (Dub, 2011). My teaching and research interests centre on fantasy, spatiality, and material culture in children's fiction. I have published on Susan Cooper, Terry Pratchett, J.R.R. Tolkien, M.R. James, and Jules Verne as well as articles on children's self-fashioning, gender, and book history. I have a keen interest in spatiality and in the representation of bodies and space in children's fiction: I have explored this interest in my monograph, Landscape in Children's Literature (2012), and in numerous publications. A separate strand in my research is commodity culture, materiality, consumption, and collection. I explore the role of commodities in my new book British Children's Literature and Material Culture: Commodities and Consumption, 1850-1914 (Bloomsbury, 2021). The book investigates the intersection of children's books and children's consumerism and analyses the role and representation of commodities within British children's literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My interest in the book as commodity reflects a wider interest in book-history. I am currently working on an article on nineteenth century pop-up books and movables that disrupt the spatial boundaries of the codex. Before joining the School of English at Trinity College Dublin in 2016, I worked at the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at the University of Roehampton (2012-2016) and in the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tale and Fantasy at the University of Chichester (2011). In 2020, I was awarded the Sassoon Visiting Research Fellowship at the Bodleian Library where I researched representations of children in advertisements in the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. I have successfully supervised or co-supervised five PhD projects to completion. I currently supervise three PhD research projects: an Irish Research Council-funded project on representations of girlhood in Maria Edgeworth's children's books; a TRDA-funded project on children's marginalia in the Pollard Collection; and a project on spatial puzzles in postmodern fiction. I teach option modules on Global Children's Fantasy, Children's Book History, and Collections & Recollections in Children's Literature. I was elected to Fellowship in 2023.
  Children's Fantasy and Science Fiction   Children's Literature   Consumption and Material Culture   Critical theory, 20th century British and Irish fiction   English Language/Literature   Image and theory of landscape, space and place   J.R.R. Tolkien   Language and/or Literature, Fiction   Language and/or Literature, Victorian   Literary Criticism   Literary Geography   Literature and Visual Art   Manuscripts and printed books   Nineteenth-century fiction   Terry Pratchett   TRINITY LIBRARY COLLECTIONS   Victorian studies, popular fiction
Project Title
 Maria Edgeworth in the Pollard Collection of children's books: constructing, collecting and conserving girlhood in the children's literature archive
From
September 2021
To
September 2023
Summary
This project interrogates concepts of girlhood as formed by Maria Edgeworth in her writing of children's stories, through a bibliographic study of Edgeworth's works held in the Pollard Collection of Children's Books at Trinity College Dublin. It focusses on Edgeworth as the Pollard Collection's most prolific author, using bibliography as a bridge to Edgeworth's texts, highlighting constructions of girlhood and femininity through the materiality of books and book production. Historical bibliographer Donald McKenzie (1986) states that bibliography must include both linguistic interpretation and historical explanation, creating a sociology of texts. I use bibliography to further Peter Hollindale's argument that childhood is as much a literary construction as it is a social construction, by arguing that "girlhood," is also a literary construct, and that it can be identified and traced within the texts, books and book collections written for and about girls (Vallone 1995, Rodgers 2016, Stewart 1993). I examine the Pollard Collection's many Edgeworth editions to show how past constructions inform current understandings of girlhood by presenting a timeline of girlhood highlighted through print culture; one that informs a girlhood experienced by female writers and girl readers in the course of a century. I show how the Edgeworth editions offer a trajectory of how girlhood is constructed or reconstructed over time, by the writer, the printer, and the implied girl reader. Through a combined methodology of textual analysis, girlhood studies, material culture, and book history, my examination of the editions shows how historical bibliography looks beyond Edgeworth's writing to the ideologies of girlhood that compelled her to write the stories, induced Pollard to collect them, and prompts scholars to consult them in the archive. This thesis provides insight into the writing, publishing and collecting practices that inform both Edgeworth's books and the collection as a whole.
Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Programme
2021 Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship
Project Type
PhD project
Project Title
 Exploring Heritage Collections
From
January 2021
To
December 2024
Summary
A blended module including development of a digital learning environment involving Google Cultural Institute, and practical workshops, linking School of English undergraduates and industry partners' staff (who can earn a microcredential) to digitised special collections in the Library of Trinity College Dublin and key heritage institutions in Dublin including the National Library of Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, Marsh's Library, the Royal Irish Academy, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the National Visual Arts Library at NCAD, and Dublin City Library and Archive. Students and industry professionals will work together in a series of off-site workshops and through the digital learning environment. Drawing on materials digitised through this project, students and industry professionals will collaborate to create online exhibitions for wide public audiences, generating new digital pathways for the access and enjoyment of special collections in libraries, museums, and galleries. Students will avail of internships with partner organisations and develop and practice new, transferable skills for the workplace, addressing the need for future skilled workers in the heritage sector. This module enables professionals in partner organisations and beyond to adopt new technologies and digitisation initiatives to promote heritage resources and engage new audiences both nationally and internationally. This module responds agilely to Trinity's capacity to anticipate, understand and respond to emerging skills of the Heritage sector. This module promotes lifelong learning, affording new opportunities for professionals within the heritage sector to upskill and to enhance their skill sets.Dr Julie Bates is Co-PI on this project.
Funding Agency
Higher Education Authority
Programme
HCI
Project Type
Collaboration with heritage institutions
Project Title
 Inscriptions in Children's Books, Ireland 1900 - 1925: The Collection and Preservation of Childhood Through Marginalia in the Pollard Collection of Children's Books
From
March 2021
To
March 2025
Summary
9)Through focusing on the marginalia found within Pollard's collection with an emphasis on books published between 1900 and 1925, this thesis will establish how the collection preserves the childhood experience by examining the way in which the child reader utilises the book to express their own thoughts, knowledge and identities, and assesses the biographical traces of the child reader through the information which they include as part of their inscriptions. This study will use marginalia to uncover the geographical, social, and economic backgrounds of these child readers and use the marks they left on these books to evaluate the impact of national changes in Ireland on these children's lives.
Funding Agency
Trinity College Dublin
Programme
Provost's PhD Project Awards
Project Type
PhD project
Project Title
 The Pratchett Project
From
18/12/18
To
Summary
This interdisciplinary network promotes knowledge exchange and supports collaborative projects on the work of fantasy author, Terry Pratchett. The network promotes Trinity's special relationship with Pratchett and brings much-needed critical attention to the collection of his works gifted to the Library by his estate. The two-day workshop in 2019, jointly organised by staff in the School of English, the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation, the Trinity Centre for Digital Humanities, ADAPT, and the Library of Trinity College Dublin, is the first in a series, bringing together researchers, librarians, and fans of Terry Pratchett's work. This workshop will establish a network of interested parties and determine the nature of larger, future projects and events based around Pratchett's work.
Funding Agency
Trinity Long Room Hub
Programme
Research Incentive Scheme for 2018-19
Project Type
Seed Funding

Details Date
Board member of the Children's Research Network (CRN) 2019
Vice President of the Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature
Peer reviewer for The Lion and the Unicorn (since 2014)
Peer reviewer for The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (since 2014)
Peer reviewer for International Research in Children's Literature (since 2011)
External examiner for Rose Miller, PhD, University of Worcester 5th November 2018
External Examiner for Dominika Nycz (PhD) University of Chichester 16 December
External examiner for MLitt in Children's Literature students at Newcastle University
Details Date From Date To
President of the Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature 2021 present
Board member of the Children's Research Network (CRN) 2019 present
Fellow of the Higher Education Association, UK 2013
"Objects and Toys" in, editor(s)Eugene Giddens, Zoe Jaques, and Louise Joy , The Cambridge History of Children's Literature in English, Volume 2: 1830-1914, Cambridge Unversity Press, 2026, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, APPROVED
Girls who Fly like Owls: Wildness and Girlhood in Text and Book in, editor(s)Simona Di Martino , Constructing British and Italian Girlhood through Literary and Visual Narratives: Magazines, Comics, and Children"s Literature, Berghahn: Oxford, New York, 2026, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, SUBMITTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, Unbookish Books: Exploring the Intersections between Reading and Play in European Children"s Movable Books in the Long Nineteenth Century, Book Trade History, 2026, Journal Article, SUBMITTED
Very Nearly Magical: The subversive power of the written word in Terry Pratchett's Discworld in, editor(s)Karen Attar and Andrew Nash (eds.) , The Reader in the Book: Books, Reading and Libraries in Fiction, London, London University Press, 2025, pp225 - 240, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
The Power of Stories: Narrative Causality and Coercive Narratives in Pratchett's Witches book in, editor(s)Justine Breton , Power and Society in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025, [Yevheniia Orestivna Kanchura, Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Jane Suzanne Carroll, 'Children's Literature and Young Adult Literature in Ireland', Oxford Bibliography of British and Irish Literature, 2024, -, Bibliography, filmography, etc., PUBLISHED  DOI
Mid Century Models: post-war girls' comics, fashion and self-fashioning in, editor(s)Kristine Moruzi, Michelle Smith, Beth Rodgers , The Edinburgh History of Children's Periodicals, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2024, pp591 - 608, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
'Shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts': The Aunt Figure in Children's Literature in, Family in Children's and Young Adult Literature, Routledge, 2023, pp42 - 54, [Carroll, Jane Suzanne], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Carroll, Jane Suzanne, `Shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts": The Aunt Figure in Children's Literature, Family in Children"s and Young Adult Literature, 2023, Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, Katy Keene as a Ludic Site for Fashion and Self-Fashioning, Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 15, (2), 2023, p205 - 224, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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Theory and Criticism: Material Culture in Young Adult Literature in, editor(s)Jennifer Mooney, Cristina Rhodes, Keith O"Sullivan, Gabriel Duckels and Peter Hunt , Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature, New York; London, 2027, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, SUBMITTED
'The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret': The Magic of the Printed Word in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series in, editor(s)Tetiana Riazantseva, Yevheniia Kantchura , Theoretical Aspects of Fantasy Studies: Representations of Magic Across the Media, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2024, [Jane Suzanne Carroll], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Jane Carroll, 'Mongrel Country', Channel, 2020, -, Notes: [https://channelmag.org/mongrel-country-jane-carroll/ ], Fiction and creative prose, PUBLISHED
Pádraic Whyte et al, 'Story Spinners: Irish Women & Children's Literature', Trinity College Dublin, Google Arts & Culture, 2018, -, Exhibition, PUBLISHED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "Adventures in the Archive", University of Antwerp, 8th July, 2018, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "A Stitch in Time: The Craft of Wasting Time in Children's Literature", International Board of Books for Young People/ National Centre for Research in Children's Literature annual conference 2018, University of Roehampton, 9th November, 2018, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "'Remarkable and Perplexing Items': Material Culture in Victorian Children's Literature" , University of Aberystwyth, 4th November, 2015, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "Social Media: Practical Applications for Teaching and Research", , University English OGM, Senate House, London, 5th December , 2015, University English, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "Material Cultures of Victorian Childhood", Biennial Conference of the Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland April, 10th-11th April 2015, 2015, Oral Presentation, PRESENTED
Jane Suzanne Carroll, "The Hag O' The Hills: Landscape in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series", Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tale and Fantasy Lecture Series, Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tale and Fantasy, University of Chichester, 25th March, 2014, Invited Talk, PRESENTED

  


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Award Date
Sassoon Visiting Fellowship, Bodleian Library 2020
National Forum Teaching Hero 2021 Award 27 April 2021
IRCHSS PhD Award 2009
My major research interest are in children's literature, literary geography, material culture, and book history. These elements of my work intersect and overlap and my research is characterized by tracing connections between the imagined worlds of children's fantasy and the real world. I particularly specialize in examining the background details in texts that are often overlooked. My PhD and the publications that emerged from it focused on the relationship between the landscapes of twentieth-century children's fiction and the topical settings of fantasy literature. My first monograph, Landscape in Children's Literature (Routledge 2012), offered a new way to combine literature with morphology and landscape history to read the landscapes of children's fantasy in a new way. I have also published on Susan Cooper, Terry Pratchett, J.R.R. Tolkien, M.R. James, and Jules Verne. My latest monograph, British Children's Literature and Material Culture: Commodities and Consumptions 1850-1914 (Bloomsbury 2021), investigates the intersection of children's books and children's consumerism and analyses the role and representation of commodities within British children's literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In tracing the role of objects in key texts from the turn of the century, I uncover the connections between these fictional objects and the real objects that child consumers bought, used, cherished, broke, and threw away. Beginning with the Great Exhibition of 1851, my work takes stock of the changing attitudes towards consumer culture - a movement from celebration to suspicion - to demonstrate that children's literature was a key consumer product, one that influenced young people's views of and relationships with other kinds of commodities. My interest in the book as commodity reflects a wider interest in book history and I have written on typography in children's picture books, and on mid-century girls' periodicals. In 2020, I was awarded a Sassoon Visiting Fellowship with the Bodleian Library, Oxford to complete research with the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera into the links between advertising, illustration, and child consumers. Since joining Trinity, I have worked to connect my research to the special collections in the Library of TCD. As well as drawing public attention to the special collections, through my involvement with The History of the Book MOOC and the Pratchett Project, I have generated new research interest in the Pollard Collection of Children's Books. I am committed to finding new ways to connect my research with my teaching interests and developing new ways to enhance the Collection, its international profile, and generate new research projects on the Collection. With Co-PI Julie Bates, I have secured funding from the Higher Education Authority to develop a new research-led module Exploring Heritage Collections that enables us to bring students and professionals together to engage with special collections from 10 heritage institutions around Dublin, including the Library at TCD.