Janice Schroeder

My research interests cover a wide range of topics, including nineteenth-century print and oral media, voice studies, Victorian women’s and feminist writing, and contemporary adoption narratives. I am the co-editor of two books: a selected edition of Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor with Barbara Leckie (Broadview 2020), and Ordinary Oralities: Everyday Voices in History with Josephine Hoegaerts (De Gruyter 2023). My research has appeared in journals such as Women’s Writing, Victorian Review, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, Victorian Periodicals Review, and Adoption & Culture. I am working on a book on contemporary transnational adoption narratives.

My teaching is closely connected to my research. I am currently leading a fourth-year seminar on adoption narratives, where we study texts from orphan fairy tales to the 60s Scoop to adoptee life writing. In connection with my research on Mayhew, I have taught graduate seminars on scholarly editing, as well as seminars on prison writing, women and labour, the Victorian schoolroom, nineteenth-century vocal cultures, and the Victorian periodical press.

I would be happy to receive proposals for doctoral research projects on most aspects of Victorian literature and culture, critical voice studies, and/or adoption narratives. Between 2020 and 2023, I served as Chair of the Department of English at Carleton and will be serving in this role again starting in 2024.

Selected Recent Publications

• Co-editor, with Josephine Hoegaerts. Ordinary Oralities: Everyday Voices in History. De Gruyter, 2023.
• Co-editor, with Barbara Leckie. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew. Broadview 2020.
• Co-author, with Barbara Leckie and Jenna Herdman. “Working with Mayhew: Collaboration and Historical Empathy in Precarious Times” in Victorian Culture and Experiential Learning. Ed. Kevin Morrison. Palgrave 2022.
• “The Stolen Child: Maternal Claim and National Belonging in David Bergen’s Stranger” in Adoption & Culture, 2022.
• “Screen Time: Slow Looking with Libbie Marsh” in A Journal of Literature and Culture, 2021.
• “‘A Thousand Petty Troubles’: Margaret Hale’s Emotional Labour in North and South” in Women’s Writing 27, 2020.

Editing

Editor, Victorian Review : An Interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Studies

Published twice annually for the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Conferences

North American Victorian Studies Association, Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies, Northeast Victorian Studies Association, Mennonite/s Writing, ACCUTE, Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture.

Graduate Supervisions

Doctoral co-supervisor for “The Remediated Mayhew” by Jenna Herdman. Completed April 2023.