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English Part of Humanities ➞ Postgraduate study

Ms Janet D Carter

Postgraduate research student

Ms Janet D Carter's photo

Ms Janet D Carter is Postgraduate research student within English at the University of Southampton.

I graduated with a first class BA in the History of Art from the University of Southampton in 1997 and after working in an art gallery for a number of years returned to study and obtained an MA in Garden History with distinction at Bristol University in 2007.  I have just completed an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Southampton (2013) and am currently undertaking an MPhil/PhD within English, examining the nineteenth-century correspondence between Anne Sturges Bourne and Marianne Dyson, adherents of the Oxford movement, held in the Hampshire Records Office at Winchester.

The expertise of my supervisors, Dr Mary Hammond (History of reading) and Professor Stephen Bygrave (Romanticism), together with the fact that my project is locally based make the University of Southampton the ideal choice for my doctoral research. The Hartley Library has an invaluable collection of primary source material relating to John Keble, prominent Tractarian (as the movement's members were termed) and rector of nearby Hursley parish, and other Tractarian leaders.  In addition, Chawton House Library houses the work of female writers and other authors discussed by Anne and Marianne in their letters.

Research interests

My thesis is entitled ‘Conformity and Dissent: Two Women's Search for a Role within the Oxford Movement'.  Anne Sturges Bourne and Marianne Dyson spent their lives in Hampshire and were adherents of the Oxford Movement, the Anglican Church revival that had its beginnings in the colleges of Oxford in the late 1820s. My research examines the ways in which Anne and Marianne, as literate, educated women, responded to the roles prescribed for them within an Anglican patriarchal hierarchy and a Tractarian discourse of spirituality which emphasized principles of obedience, self-denial and asceticism. I am focusing on their interaction with the fictional literature they were reading and looking at ways in which this influenced their own writing in the context of other female Tractarian writers. Both Anne and Marianne knew Charlotte Yonge, the most prolific and widely-read Tractarian author of the nineteenth century. Marianne had already published two novels for children by the time she met Yonge in 1843 and Marianne became a mentor to her. Anne wrote articles for the Tractarian Magazine for the Young and the Monthly Packet , edited by Yonge. I shall be reading Marianne's novels and Anne's periodical material in conjunction with the letters in order to engage with the way their developing sense of authorship contributed to an understanding of their philanthropic role within the wider community.

Grants and Awards

In 2013 I was awarded a Vice-Chancellors' Award in English to support my doctoral studies for the duration.

Other Activities

For 2013/14 I have taken over the running of the ‘Southampton Postgraduate Eighteenth-Century Society' (SPECS) and have been successful in obtaining funding from the University for this purpose.

Ms Janet D Carter
Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Southampton Avenue Campus Highfield Southampton SO17 1BF United Kingdom
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