Jane Tolmie

DPhil (Performance and Gender Studies), Oxford University
PhD (English and Comparative Literature), Harvard University
AM (English and Comparative Literature), Harvard University
MA (English), Yale University
BA, Yale University

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Research interests: Feminist, Gender and Queer Theory, Women’s and Medieval Literature, Theatre and Performance, Sequential Art/Alternative Comics

Jane Tolmie (PhD Harvard, DPhil Oxon, Rhodes Scholar) is a medievalist and literature specialist with research interests in poetry and theatre (medieval and modern); sequential art; science fiction and fantasy; feminist, queer, and gender theory; autobiography/self-narration; and social justice.   Her current research projects engage with 1. memory and trauma in contemporary women’s comics and 2. consent, choice and reproductive justice in popular culture. She has a forthcoming book Contagious Imagination The Work and Art of Lynda Barry is available for purchase through the University Press of Mississippi. She supervises MA and PhD students in a range of disciplines including Gender Studies, English, Cultural Studies, and Education.

She is a poet, feminist activist, blogger (HuffPo), and a member of Informed Opinions. She regularly contributes interviews on topics in feminist studies and popular culture, e.g. “Do trigger warnings create a safe space for students, or coddle them?” Interview. CBC Radio The Sunday Edition. 29 November, 2015.

In connection with her work in popular culture, she is an advocate of public and academic engagement with fandom; see appendix O of a case brought before the U.S. Copyright office at the library of Congress in 2011.

Publications appear in various academic and creative journals and books; paintings by BC artist Perry Rath from their poetry/art collaborative project have been displayed in curated exhibits in BC and NYC. She is cross-appointed to English and affiliated with the graduate program in Cultural Studies, where she has served as Program Coordinator and Acting Director.

Selected Publications
“Post-Underground: Women in Graphic Novels.” Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel. Ed. Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, and Stephen Tabachnick. Forthcoming. (Cambridge University Press).

Jane Tolmie and Perry Rath, collaborative art/poetry exhibit at the Vancouver Art Institute,  April 3-June 29, 2016.

Jane Tolmie. “Book of Vole (excerpts).” Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Ed.Sandra Kasturi and Helen Marshall. ChiZine 2015

Drawing from Life: Memory and Subjectivity in Comic Art. Ed. Jane Tolmie. (University Press of Mississippi, 2013). Nominated for the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Educational/Academic Work. 

“Snack.” The Dalhousie Review. Spring 2014.

“Experiments in Autobiography: The Book of Vole (excerpts).” Strange Horizons. 2013.

“York: The Slaughter of the Innocents." Ed. & Intro. The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama. Ed. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview. 2013.

"Masculinities in Canadian Literature." Jane Tolmie and Karis Shearer. Canadian Perspectives on Men and Masculinities. Ed. Jason Laker. OUP: 2010.

Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature. Ed. Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell. Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe. (Brepols Press, 2010). 

"Public Scandal and Private Pain:  Joseph's Quite Reasonable Doubts." Performance, Drama and Spectacle in the Medieval City.  Ed. Catherine Emerson, Adrian Tudor, Mario Longtin. Leuven: Peeters, 2010.

"Modernism, Memory and Desire:  Queer Cultural Production in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home."  Topia:  Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 22, 2009.

“Eve in the Looking-Glass:  Interpretive Labour in the Anglo-Norman Adam play." lectio difficilior:  European Online Journal of Feminist Exegesis. 2, 2009.

"Silence in the Sewing Chamber: Le Roman de Silence."  French Studies.  63:1, 2009.