Zoe Jaques is the author of Children’s Literature and the Posthuman (Routledge, 2015) and co-author of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: A Publishing History (Ashgate, 2013). These books reflect her diverse interests in the history of children’s books and illustration and the intersections of children’s literature and film with literary theory and philosophy. Zoe has written journal articles and book chapters on works by Charles Kingsley, Lewis Carroll, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tove Jansson, Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, and Suzanne Collins. Her research interests span fiction for children from 1800 to the present, and in particular how children’s fantasy participates in questions of what it means to be human. Her work has engaged with critical thinking on the sublime, Darwinism, ecocriticism, gender, cyborg theory, the history of the book, and animal studies. Her research has been funded by the British Academy and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, which permitted her to consider appropriations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Japan. She has received research fellowships from the Houghton Library, Harvard University, and the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Previously Zoe was a postdoctoral research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University. Before coming to Cambridge Zoe taught children’s literature at Birkbeck College, London, with Michael Rosen and at Anglia Ruskin University with Farah Mendelsohn.
Education
Zoe has eclectic research interests; she has published on topics ranging from the history of metamorphosis to the representation of archery in modern children’s fiction. The majority of her research concerns children’s literature and she has a particular interest in the representation of the non-human. Her most recent research project explored posthuman philosophy in children’s fiction, considering how questions of the animal, environment and technology emerge in children’s fantasy literature and film. She also has an interest in book history and illustration. She has published extensively on Lewis Carroll’s Alice books.
Zoe is the route co-ordinator for the MPhil / MEd in ‘Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature’ at the Faculty of Education. She leads the Part II paper in Education on ‘Children and Literature’ and supervises undergraduate dissertations in English and Education. She also supervises PhD students.
- Jaques, Z. Children’s Literature and the Posthuman. London: Routledge, 2015.
- Jaques, Z. & B. Sundmark. Eds. ‘Machines, Monsters and Animals: Posthuman Children’s Literature.’ Special issue of Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature. 2015.
- Jaques, Z. & E. Giddens. Lewis Carroll’s Alice: A Publishing History. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013.
- Jaques, Z. ‘“Tiny dots of cold green”: Pastoral Nostalgia and the State of Nature in Tove Jansson’s The Moomins and the Great Flood’. The Lion and the Unicorn 38.2 (2014), 200-216.
- Jaques, Z. ‘“This Huntress who Delights in Arrows”: The Female Archer in Children’s Fiction’. A Quest of her Own: The Female Hero in Modern Fantasy. Ed. Lori Campbell. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2014. 150-171.
- Jaques, Z. ‘There and Back Again: The Gendered Journey of Tolkien’s Hobbits.’ J. R. R. Tolkien. Ed. Peter Hunt. London: Palgrave, 2013. 88-105.
- Jaques, Z. ‘Arboreal Myths: Dryadic Transformations, Children’s Literature, and Fantastic Trees.’ Transformative Change in Western Thought: A History of Metamorphosis from Homer to Hollywood. Eds. Ingo Gildenhard & Andrew Zissos. Modern Humanities Research Association Publication. Oxford: Legenda, 2013. 163-182.
- ‘States of Nature in His Dark Materials and Harry Potter.’ Topic 57 (2012), 1-16.
