Department of English, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
tel. 604 822-4761; fax 604 822-6906
E-mail: Gisele.Baxter@ubc.ca

SITE UNDER PROCESS OF GRADUAL MASSIVE RECONSTRUCTION. MIND THE GAPS.

Education

• 1986-90: Ph.D., Dalhousie University. Thesis: Narrative Methods and Social Contexts in the Novel of Dislocation. Supervisor: Rowland J. Smith.
• 1981-82: M.A., Dalhousie. Thesis: Northern Diviner: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney. Supervisor: S.E. Sprott.
• 1979-80: Qualifying Year (M.A.), Dalhousie University.
• 1976-79: B.A., Mount Saint Vincent University.

Principal Academic Awards

• 2002-03: Ian Fairclough Teaching Prize (awarded annually to a sessional lecturer in the Department of English and/or the Writing Centre at the University of British Columbia)
• 1992-94: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship; affiliated with the University of East Anglia (supervisor: Malcolm Bradbury) and McGill University (supervisor: Kerry McSweeney).
• 1989-90: SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship; Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship (Honourary).
• 1988-89: Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship.

Teaching Experience

All courses are English unless otherwise indicated.

• University of British Columbia, 1997-present
• 2010-11 - 112: Strategies for University Writing; 100: Reading and Writing about Literature; 468: Children's Literature; 464: 20th-Century Studies
• Other courses taught at UBC - 410: 20th-Century British Literature; 406: Studies in Prose Fiction; 304: Advanced Composition; 303: Intermediate Composition; 301: Technical Writing; 227: Prose Fiction; 207: Introduction to the Novel; 201: Major Authors Survey; 110: Approaches to Literature
• Dalhousie University, 1992; 1995-97; 1999 - 3209: 20th-Century Fiction; 2029: Framed Narratives; 1000: Introduction to Literature; also Teaching Assistant for 2221/Women's Studies 2200: Fictions of Development
• McGill University 1994-95 - 335: Modern British Fiction; 443: Contemporary Women's Fiction; 201: Restoration to 20th Century
• Université de Montréal January-April 1995 - 2162: Contemporary British Fiction
• St. Francis Xavier University 1991-92 - 250: Survey of 20th-Century Literature; 350: Modern British Fiction
• St. Lawrence University 1990-91 - 110: Introduction to Literature; 226: Survey of English Literature since 1700; 353: The Modern British Novel; 360: British Women Writers
• Mount Saint Vincent University 1983-85 - 105: Literature for Children and Young Adults; 120: The Theory and Practice of Writing

Supervision and Examination

All are at UBC unless otherwise noted.

• 2010-11: Alyzee Lakhani, English 499: Graduating Essay Ð "The Crisis of Knowing in The Penultimate Peril of Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (supervisor)
• Jessica Li, English 499: Graduating Essay Ð "Representation of Cloning in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion (supervisor)
• January-April 2010: John Brennan, English 499: Graduating Essay Ð "Technology and Globalism in William Gibson's Spook Country and Pattern Recognition" (supervisor)
• September-December 2009: Jeremy Newcombe, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Examining Temporality in Graphic Novels: Representations of Time in Alan Moore's Watchmen" (supervisor)
• 2008-09: Sulynn Chuang Xin, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Within the Vicious Cabaret: Masks, Identity, and How to Read a Superhero Body in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta" (reader)
• 2008-09: Amanda Zapp, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "When Wendy Grew Up: The Psychological Function of Fairyland in J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy" (reader)
• 2009: Faculty Sponsor, Student Directed Seminar, ASTU 400D/002: "Science Fiction & the City". (Coordinator: Matthew Blunderfield)
• 2007-08: Darcie Frederick, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Surviving The Road" (reader)
• 2007-08: Karen Teufel, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Tracking the Forces of Good and Evil in the Harry Potter Series" (reader)
• 2008: Faculty Sponsor, Student Directed Seminar, English 490/015: "Chick Lit: Making (Over) a Context" (Coordinator: Anita Law)
• 2006-07: Robert Willis, Master's Thesis (School of Journalism) - "Cool to Be Christian?: Dissecting the North American Christian Rock Scene" (reader)
• 2006-07: Elizabeth Anderson, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Storytelling Then and Now: An Examination of the Effects of Oral, Literary and Electronic Forms on the Changing Nature of the Folk and Fairy Tale in Labyrinth and A Forfeit of Dreams" (supervisor)
• 2006-07: Catherine T. Whitehead, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Worlds Apart: Children and Authority in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dark Is Rising, and His Dark Materials" (supervisor)
• Simon Fraser University, 2006: Leslie M. Meier, Master's Thesis (School of Communication) - "In Concert: The Coordination of Popular Music, Youth Practices, and Lifestyle Marketing" (external examiner)
• 2006: Faculty Sponsor, Student Directed Seminar, English 466: "Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll: Popular Culture, 1970s to Today" (Coordinator: Ashley Bayles)
• 2004-05: Mysha Dewar-McClelland, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "'Nobody's Meat': A Study of Gender Roles in Traditional and Modern Fairy Tales" (supervisor)
• 2003-04: David Simpson, English 499: Graduating Honours Essay - "Eco-Dystopia: A New Genre Born In The Last Frontier Of The New World" (supervisor)
• 2000: Maria Ticinovic, Master's Thesis - "Sublimity and History in Don DeLillo's Underworld" (reader and examiner)
• St. Lawrence University, 1991: SallyAnne Wolek, Independent Study Project on South African women writers - "What is Legitimate: Exploring Perceptions of Race and Sexuality (Gordimer, Tlali, Head)" (supervisor)

Teaching and Research Interests

My teaching and research interests include 20th-21st century literary and cultural studies; history of the novel; representations of near-future/alternate history dystopias; the production and reception of popular culture; the gothic inheritance in literature and popular culture; narrative in prose fiction and film; the turn of the millennium and the gothic impulse; Dracula and Frankenstein in various media; representations of gender; narrative forms and theory; composition; children's and "young adult" literature.

Publications

• "The School of Life" (review of Anne Laurel Carter, The Shepherd's Granddaughter, Edeet Ravel, The Saver, and Mariko Tamaki/Jillian Tamaki, Skim). Canadian Literature.
• Review of Mavis Reimer, ed. Home Words: Discourses of Children's Literature in Canada. The Dalhousie Review. 88.3 (Autumn 2008) 455-57.
• "Seeing Things" (review of James Heneghan, Payback, Marthe Jocelyn, How it Happened in Peach Hill, and Andrew Wedderburn, The Milk Chicken Bomb). Canadian Literature. 197 (Summer 2008). 140-41.
• "Rites of Passage" (review of William Bell, Crabbe, and Julie Johnston, A Very Fine Line). Canadian Literature. 194 (Autumn 2007). 101-02.
• "Nocturnal Me" (review of Christopher Dewdney, Acquainted with the Night). Canadian Literature). 191 (Winter 2006). 189-90.
• "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" (review of Lynn Coady, Mean Boy). Canadian Literature. 189 (Summer 2006). 164-65.
• "21st-Century Dreams: Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Turn of the Millennium" (review of Grace L. Dillon, ed. Hive of Dreams: Contemporary Science Fiction From the Pacific Northwest, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Claude LaLumiere ed. Open Space: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction, Jean-Francois Leroux and Camille R. LaBossiere, eds. Worlds of Wonder: Readings in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature). 187 (Winter 2005). 124-26.
• "Nightmares and Daydreams" (review of various picture books). Canadian Children's Literature. 27:3.103 (Fall 2001). 71-2.
• "'After such knowledge, what forgiveness?': Exile, Marriage and the Resistance to Commitment in D.H. Lawrence's Kangaroo." The Journal of Narrative Technique. 24.2 (Spring 1994). 127-40.
• "The Generous Spirit: The Moral and Physical Experience of a Man at War in Homage to Catalonia and For Whom the Bell Tolls." The Dalhousie Review. 73.3 (Fall 1993). 68-80.
• "Clothes, Men and Books: Cultural Experiences and Identity in the Early Novels of Anita Brookner." English. 42.173 (Summer 1993). 125-39.
• Reviews for The Dalhousie Review: Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, Vocation and Identity in the Fiction of Muriel Spark, and Sanford Sternlicht, ed., In Search of Stevie Smith (Fall 1992); Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae (Fall 1991); Anita Brookner, Lewis Percy (Winter 1990).

Papers, Colloquia, and Conference Work

• 25 April 2009: Breaking the Boundaries: A Peer Reviewed Research Conference on Radical Children's Literature (UBC): "The Problem of Teen Fiction" (keynote speaker)
• 7 July 2008: Creative Writing MFA Summer Residency Program (UBC): "Literary Machines: The Writer and the Cybersphere" (panelist)
• 13 March 2008: Brock House Society Lecture Series (Vancouver): "The Good Fight: The Spanish Civil War in Fiction and Film"
• 2 March 2006: Brock House Lecture Series: "J.M. Barrie, the Llewellyn Davies Family, and the Creation of Peter Pan"
• 17 November 2005: Brock House Lecture Series: "It's Alive!: The Legacy of Frankenstein in Popular Culture"
• 2, 4 and 9 November 2004: Humanities 101 Lectures (Vancouver): "The Popular Legacy of Dracula"
• 26 February 2004: Brock House Lecture Series: "Dracula's Grandchildren: Bram Stoker's Novel and its Legacy in Film"
• 13, 18 and 20 November 2003: Humanities 101 Lectures on Dracula
• 27 October 2003: Chair, UBC English Department Colloquium: "Team Pedagogue"
• 21 March 2002: Organizer, UBC English Department Colloquium: "Millennial Gothic" (Paper: "Dracula's Grandchildren: Undomesticating the Count")
• 31 October 2001: Humanities Storefront Lecture Series (Vancouver): "Dracula's Grandchildren"
• 15 March, 2001: Brock House Lecture Series: "Shakespeare and Company: Sylvia Beach and the 1920s Paris Literary Scene"
• 13 February, 2001: Vancouver Public Library (Main Branch): "Oscar Wilde: Background and Context"
• 24 January, 2001: Chair, UBC English Department Colloquium: "No Future: Punk Revisited" (Paper: "Never Mind the Situationists, or Public Image Limited: Theorizing the Punk Myth")
• 28 September, 2000: Brock House Lecture Series: "Clothes, Men and Books: Culture and Identity in Anita Brookner's Fiction"
• 27 January, 2000: Brock House Lecture Series: "Mutual Dislocation: Marriage and the Representation of Yvonne Firmin in Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano" (revised version)
• 3 June, 1999: Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English Conference, Sherbrooke, Québec: "Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children: Why Still an Unread Book?"
• 12 June, 1997: The 1997 Malcolm Lowry Symposium: An International Celebration, Toronto, Ontario: "Mutual Dislocation: Marriage in Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano"
• 20 April, 1996: Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Montréal, Québec: "D.H. Lawrence and the Idea of Nation" (response to session D.H. Lawrence, Nation and Race)
• 5 June, 1994: Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English Conference, Calgary, Alberta: "Man Alive and the Mob-Spirit: Physicality, Integrity and Conscription in D.H. Lawrence's Kangaroo"
• 28 December, 1989: Modern Language Association Convention, Washington, D.C.: "Orwell and Hemingway in Spain: The Moral and Physical Experience of a Man at War"
• 10 March, 1989: Dalhousie University English Department Colloquium: "Mutual Dislocation: Marriage in D.H. Lawrence's Kangaroo and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano"

Other Experience

• 2011: Co-editor, with Brett Grubisic and Tara Lee, of After NAFTA: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature (to be published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• 2008-10
  University of British Columbia: Co-authoring with Suzanne James online versions of English 112 and English 468 for the Office of Learning Technologies (now the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technologies).
• Summer-Fall 2000
  University of British Columbia: Designer of Website and Publicity Materials for Wilde 2000, a symposium marking the centenary of Oscar Wilde's death.
• July 1996-July 1997
  Dalhousie English Department: Executive Assistant, The Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE).
• September-October 1995
  Dalhousie English Department: Acting Graduate Secretary.
• 1989: Dalhousie
  Member, Editorial Board, Critical Mass: A Graduate Review of Literature (later renamed Henry Street).
• 1980-82: Dalhousie
  CKDU Radio: Member of station executive, record librarian, program host, record critic. The Dalhousie Gazette: Arts critic; Entertainment Editor, 1981-82.

A full curriculum vitae is available upon request. A list of significant media work is under construction.

Return to my home page.

Copyright Gisèle M. Baxter 1996-present. All rights reserved.