Gisèle Marie Baxter
Department of English, University of British Columbia
397-1873 East Mall, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
604 822-9455 | Gisele.Baxter@ubc.ca http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/gmbaxter/
Teaching and Research Interests
• 19th-21st century literary and cultural studies; the Gothic inheritance, especially in Victorian literature and 19th-21st century popular culture; dystopian and post-apocalyptic narratives; Modernism (especially
British and Irish); the contemporary bildungsroman ; composition including technical writing
Professional Organizations
•
Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English; International Gothic Association
Education
•
1986-90: PhD, Dalhousie University. Thesis: Narrative Methods and Social Contexts in the Novel of
Dislocation . Supervisor: Rowland J. Smith
• 1981-82: MA, Dalhousie University. Thesis: Northern Diviner: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney .
Supervisor: S.E. Sprott
• 1976-79: BA, Mount Saint Vincent University
Teaching Experience
All courses are English unless otherwise indicated. All appointments are sessional.
•
University of British Columbia, 1997-present: Courses taught most frequently are 112: Strategies for
University Writing; 100: Reading and Writing about Literature; 110: Approaches to Literature; 468:
•
Children's Literature; 464: 20 th Century Studies; 301: Technical Writing
Dalhousie University, 1992; 1995-97; 1999: 3209: 20 th 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 20 th Century
• Université de Montréal January-April 1995: 2162: Contemporary British Fiction
• St. Francis Xavier University 1991-92: 250: 20 th Century Literature; 350: Modern British Fiction
• St. Lawrence University 1990-91: 110: Introduction to Literature; 226: English Literature since 1700;
353: Modern British Novel; 360: British Women Writers
•
Mount Saint Vincent University 1983-85 : 105: Literature for Children and Young Adults; 120: Theory and Practice of Writing
Principal Academic Awards
•
2002-03: Ian Fairclough Teaching Prize (for sessional teaching in English, UBC)
© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, shared, revised, or otherwise used without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.

•
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
• 1988-90: Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship
Graduating Honours Essays Supervision and Examination (UBC)
2
• 2015-16: Emma Riek, "Born Without Destiny: A Discussion of Child Heroism and its Function in Roald
Dahl's Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Witches" (supervisor); Gemma Grimes on the two worlds of The Wind in the Willows (supervisor; pending)
•
2014-15: Elora Hunka, "A Performing Text: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Visual Literary Story"
(supervisor); Vanessa Power, "Postmodern Degradation and Posthuman Transcendence" (supervisor)
•
2013-14: Olivia Dreisinger "'What's the Word for Things Not Being the Same Always': Change,
Change, Change and Collaborative Misfits in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman " (supervisor)
• 2012-13: Travis LaCroix, "Existentialism and the Toy Story Triad" (supervisor)
• 2011-12: Miranda Martini, "Get Them Young: Ecology and Children's Culture of the Twentieth
Century" (reader); Amy Miles, "Written by the Scriptors: Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of
Stories as a Response to Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author " (reader)
• 2010-11: Alyzee Lakhani, "The Crisis of Knowing in The Penultimate Peril of Daniel Handler's A
Series of Unfortunate Events " (supervisor); Jessica Li, "Representation of Cloning in Kazuo Ishiguro's
Never Let Me Go and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion " (supervisor)
• 2009-10: John Brennan, "Technology and Globalism in William Gibson's Spook Country and Pattern
Recognition " (supervisor); Jeremy Newcombe, "Examining Temporality in Graphic Novels:
Representations of Time in Alan Moore's Watchmen " (supervisor)
•
2008-09: Sulynn Chuang Xin, "Within the Vicious Cabaret: Masks, Identity, and How to Read a
Superhero Body in Alan Moore's V for Vendetta " (reader); Amanda Zapp, "When Wendy Grew Up: The
Psychological Function of Fairyland in J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy " (reader)
•
2007-08: Darcie Frederick, "Surviving The Road " (reader); Karen Teufel, "Tracking the Forces of Good and Evil in the Harry Potter Series" (reader)
• 2006-07: Elizabeth Anderson, "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); Catherine T. Whitehead, "Worlds Apart: Children and Authority in The
Chronicles of Narnia , The Dark Is Rising , and His Dark Materials " (supervisor)
•
2004-05: Mysha Dewar-McClelland, "'Nobody's Meat': A Study of Gender Roles in Traditional and
Modern Fairy Tales" (supervisor)
• 2003-04: David Simpson, "Eco-Dystopia: A New Genre Born In The Last Frontier Of The New World"
(supervisor)
Faculty Sponsor, UBC Student Directed Seminars
•
ASTU 400P: Why the Undead Walk Among Us: An Exploration of Zombies in Literature and Popular
Culture (Coordinator: Kate Reilly, 2016)
•
ASTU 400G: Spectral Spirits, Suspense, and the Sublime: Gothic Literature in Speculation
(Coordinators: Gemma Grimes and Catherine Read, 2014)
•
ASTU 400D/002: Science Fiction & the City (Coordinator: Matthew Blunderfield, 2009)
• English 490/015: Chick Lit: Making (Over) a Context (Coordinator: Anita Law, 2008)
© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, shared, revised, or otherwise used without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.

•
English 466: Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll: Popular Culture, 1970s to Today (Coordinator: Ashley
Bayles, 2006)
Other Supervision and Examination
3
•
2006-07: Robert Willis, Master's Thesis (UBC School of Journalism) "Cool to Be Christian?: Dissecting the North American Christian Rock Scene" (reader)
• 2006: Leslie M. Meier, Master's Thesis (Simon Fraser University School of Communication) "In
Concert: The Coordination of Popular Music, Youth Practices, and Lifestyle Marketing" (external examiner)
•
2000: Maria Ticinovic, Master's Thesis (UBC Department of English) "Sublimity and History in Don
DeLillo's Underworld " (reader and examiner)
•
1991: SallyAnne Wolek, Independent Study Project on South African women writers (St. Lawrence
University Department of English): "What is Legitimate: Exploring Perceptions of Race and Sexuality
(Gordimer, Tlali, Head)" (supervisor)
Publications
• Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature . Co-editor, with
Brett Grubisic and Tara Lee. (Wilfrid Laurier University Press 2014)
•
Reviews for Canadian Literature : https://canlit.ca/canlit_authors/gisele-m-baxter-2/
•
Review: Kathryn James. Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature . English
Studies . 92:8 (2011). 933-934.
• Review: Mavis Reimer, ed. Home Words: Discourses of Children's Literature in Canada . The
Dalhousie Review . 88.3 (Autumn 2008). 455-57.
• "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).
Work in Progress
• 2013- : Co-editor with Brett Grubisic of The Matter of Murder: Murderous Acts, Cultural Contexts,
Canadian Literary Media (publishing agreement with Wilfrid Laurier University Press).
• 2015- : "Bluebeard in Tasmania" - a project examining Heidi Lee Douglas's 2014 horror short film Little
Lamb , set in and near a prison for transported women convicts in early 19
Gothic retelling of "Bluebeard" th century Tasmania, as a
Principal Papers and Talks
• 29 October 2015: Harry Potter, Brands of Magic: Colloquium (UBC): "Fanfiction and Fan
Communities"
© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, shared, revised, or otherwise used without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.

4
•
1 August 2015: International Gothic Association Conference, Vancouver: "Bluebeard in Tasmania:
Heidi Lee Douglas's Little Lamb as Gothic retelling and historical drama"
•
25 April 2009: Breaking the Boundaries: A 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)
• 1999-2008: Brock House Society Lecture Series (Vancouver): topics included Spanish Civil War narratives; Peter Pan ; Frankenstein ; Dracula ; 1920s Paris Literary Scene; Anita Brookner; Christina
Stead; Under the Volcano
• 21 March 2002: Organizer, UBC English Department Colloquium: "Millennial Gothic" (Paper:
"Dracula's Grandchildren: Undomesticating the Count")
• 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")
•
3 June 1999: ACCUTE Conference, Sherbrooke: "Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children :
Why Still an Unread Book?"
•
12 June 1997: Malcolm Lowry Symposium: An International Celebration, Toronto: "Mutual
Dislocation: Marriage in Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano "
• 20 April 1996: NEMLA Convention, Montréal: "D.H. Lawrence and the Idea of Nation" (response to session D.H. Lawrence, Nation and Race )
•
5 June 1994: ACCUTE Conference, Calgary: "Man Alive and the Mob-Spirit: Physicality, Integrity and
Conscription in D.H. Lawrence's Kangaroo "
•
28 December 1989: MLA Convention, Washington, D.C.: "Orwell and Hemingway in Spain: The
Moral and Physical Experience of a Man at War"
Other Experience
• 2008-13: Online course authoring, UBC: English 462: The Modern British Novel, with Catherine
Nelson-McDermott; English 112: Strategies for University Writing and English 468: Children's
Literature, with Suzanne James
•
2008-2015: Marker for CM1, a technical writing course offered by the Certified General Accountants
Association (now Chartered Professional Accountants Canada); CM1 lecturer (UBC) 2010-12
• 2012-13: Advisory Committee, development of Certificate in Professional Communication (UBC
Continuing Studies)
• Summer-Fall 2000: Website and Publicity Materials for Wilde 2000, a symposium at UBC 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)
A more detailed curriculum vitae , with a complete list of talks and reviews, as well as a list of major media work, can be supplied on request.
© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, shared, revised, or otherwise used without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.