Dr. Michelle Beissel Heath's headshot

Dr. Michelle Beissel Heath

Professor, Department Chair
beisselheamp@unk.edu
(308) 865-8109
THMH 202B
Department of English
Research focus areas: British literature of the long 19th century, childhood studies, material culture

Areas of Expertise

  • English
  • Literature

Biography

Dr. Beissel Heath’s teaching and research interests include children’s literature and British literature of the long nineteenth century. Her work in childhood studies explores intersections of literature, history, play, citizenship, and empire.

Education

  • Ph.D., English. The George Washington University. Washington, DC. May 2008.
  • M.A., English. The University of Maine. Orono, ME. August 2001.
  • B.A., English, History, & Spanish. Gustavus Adolphus College. St. Peter, MN. May 1999.

Publications

Book

Nineteenth-Century Fictions of Childhood and the Politics of Play, London, Routledge (formerly Ashgate), 2018.

Journal Articles

“Reveling in Restraint: Limiting the Neo-Victorian Girl.” Children’s Literature, vol. 48, 2020 (May), pp. 80-104. [Children’s Literature Association (ChLA) & Modern Language Association (MLA) Division on Children’s Literature annual journal].

“Recycled Stories: Historicizing Play Today Through the Late Nineteenth Century Anglo-American Play Movement.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, vol. 7, no. 1, Winter 2014, pp. 107-133.

“Oh Golly, What a Happy Family!: Trajectories of Citizenship and Agency in Three Twentieth-Century Book Series for Children.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, vol. 5, no. 1, Summer 2013, pp. 38-64.  Reprinted in “Allan Ahlberg.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Carol A. Schwartz, volume 233, Farmington Hills, MI, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2020, pp. 20-33.

“Not ‘All Ridges and Furrows’ and ‘Uncroquetable Lawns’: Croquet, Female Citizenship, and 1860s Domestic Chronicles.” Critical Survey, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2012, pp. 43-56.

“Lessons Not Learned: ‘Bad Cocoa,’ ‘Worse Blankets,’ and the Unhappy Endings of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales.” The Oscholars, edited by Naomi Wood, June 2009, n.p.

Book Chapters

“Forming the Victorian Child,” History of Children's Literature, vol. 2, 1830-1914, edited by Zoe Jaques, Eugene Giddens & Louise Joy, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

“Catherine Ann Dorset,” Research Companion to Romantic Women Writers, edited by Ann Hawkins, Cathy Blackwell, and E. Leigh Bonds. London, Routledge, forthcoming.

The U.S. as Wonderland: British Literature, U.S. Nationalism, and Late Nineteenth-Century Children’s and Family Board and Card Games.” Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America, edited by Ann R. Hawkins, Erin N. Bistline, Catherine S. Blackwell, and Maura Ives, Albany, NY, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, November 2021, pp. 193-213.

“Socialization: Civilizing Child’s Play,” The Long Nineteenth Century (1800-1920), edited by Naomi Wood, A Cultural History of the Fairy Tale, volume 5, edited by Anne Duggan, Bloomsbury’s Cultural History Series, London, Bloomsbury, July 2021, pp. 149-166.

“‘Just think – How Many Girls Have Special Powers Like You?’: Weird Girls and the Normalizing of Deviance in Early Readers.” The Early Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture, edited by Annette Wannamaker and Jennifer Miskec, London, Routledge, 2016, pp. 190-216. Book Collection Named a 2018 Children’s Literature Association Edited Book Award Honor Book

“The ‘Rubbing Off’ of ‘Art and Beauty’: Child Citizenship, Literary Engagement, and the Anglo-American Playground Movement.” Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media, edited by Alexander N. Howe and Wynn Yarbrough, New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014, pp. 71-94.

“Cooks and Queens and Dreams: The South Sea Islands as Fairy Islands of Fancy.” Oceania and the Victorian Imagination: Where All Things Are Possible, edited by Richard D. Fulton and Peter H. Hoffenberg, Farnham, Surrey, Ashgate, 2013, pp. 137-149.

“Playing at House and Playing at Home: the Domestic Discourse of Games in Edwardian Fictions of Childhood.” Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time, edited by Adrienne E. Gavin and Andrew F. Humphries, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 89-102. Book Collection Given the 2011 Children’s Literature Association Edited Book Award

Other

Book review, Dara Rossman Regaignon's Writing Maternity, for History: The Journal of the Historical Association, vol. 107, issue 374, 29 November 2021.

“Allan Ahlberg.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Carol A. Schwartz, vol. 233, Farmington Hills, MI, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2020, pp. 1-34. (Volume Advisor)

“Enid Blyton.” Children’s Literature Review, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, volume 204, Farmington Hills, MI, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016, pp. 1-67. (Volume Advisor)

Bibliographic entries for the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) Bibliography: 2005-2007. Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 41, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp.183-224.

Academic Grants/Fellowships

  • Humanities Nebraska Mini-Grant, July 2019
  • Children’s Literature Association Faculty Research Grant, June 2015
  • Mary Valentine and Andrew Cosman Research Fellowship, The Strong National Museum of Play, June 2015
  • Research Services Council (RSC) Seed Grant, University of Nebraska, Kearney, 2015
  • Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Winter 2011-2012
  • Research Services Council Summer Scholarly Activity Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Summer 2011
  • Center for Teaching Excellence Travel Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney, 2010
  • Research Services Council Mini-Grant, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Winter 2009-2010
  • Newcomb Institute Faculty Travel Grant, Tulane University, 2008
  • Cosmos Club Foundation Grant, 2007

Selected Conferences

  • “‘A Steady Diet of Dickens and Darwin’: Envisioning Girlhood by Way of Male Luminaries in Children’s Neo-Victorian Fiction.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  St. Petersburg, FL.  October 2018.
  • “Navigating the Waters of Nineteenth Century Girlhood through a Constellation of Great Men: Stratford’s The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency and ‘Neo-Victorian’ Fiction for Children.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  San Antonio, TX.  June 2018.
  • “‘Hissing and Clapping’: Dark Undercurrents and Contradictions of Liberty in Narrative Descriptions of 19th Century Children’s Games.” International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA). Richmond, VA. June 2015.
  • “Frances Hodgson Burnett and Children’s Literature’s De-Radicalizing of Aestheticism.” Midwest Victorian Studies Association (MVSA). Iowa City, IA. May 2015.
  • "Trapped in the Past: Limiting the Fantastical Potential of the Neo-Victorian Girl."  Neo-Victorian Cultures: The Victorians Today. Liverpool John Moores University Research Centre for Literature and Cultural History conference. Liverpool, UK. July 2013.
  • "Dueling with Literary Legacies? The Battle for Cultural Respectability and National Pride in U.S. and British 19th Century Card Games." International Conference of the Children's Literature Association (ChLA). Biloxi, MS. June 2013.
  • "Art for Art” is their motto’: Aesthetics, Children’s Play, and Late Victorian Children’s Literature.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  Nashville, TN.  November 2011.
  • “Re-taming the Rebellious Child?: Re-writing the 19th Century Girl in Timothy Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Jacqueline Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Roanoke, VA.  June 2011.   
  • “Playing with the Numbers: Child Crowds, Child’s Play, and Mary Augusta Ward’s Milly and Olly.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  Montreal, Canada.  November 2010. 
  • “Cooks and Queens and Dreams: The South Seas as Fairy Islands of Fancy.”  Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS) annual conference.  Honolulu, HI.  October 2010. 
  • “Oh, Golly, what a Happy Family!: Politics, Play, and the Extra-Literary Lives of Allan Ahlberg’s, Florence Upton’s, and Enid Blyton’s Children’s Book Series.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Ann Arbor, MI.  June 2010.   
  • “Redeeming ‘the Uncroquetable Lawn’:  Charlotte Yonge, Flirtatious Hoops, and Family Time.”  18th and 19th Century British Women Writers Association (BWWA) annual conference.  Iowa City, IA.  April 2009. 
  • “Sporting Encounters: Liberating Lawn Tennis and a Heterosocial Forster.”  North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA) annual conference.  New Haven, CT.  November 2008.
  • “Making a Good Little Briton: Fiction, Games, and the 19th Century Commodities of Childhood and Citizenship.”  Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media interdisciplinary conference.  Washington, DC.  September 2008.
  • “Empire, Home, and the Child as Artifact: Six to Sixteen and Kim’s Game.”  Midwest Victorian Studies Association (MVSA) Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. April 2008.
  • “Playing at House and Playing at Home: the Domestic Discourse of Games in Nesbit, Barrie, and Stevenson.”  International Conference of the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA).  Newport News, VA.  June 2007.
  • “The Uncroquetable Lawn”: Charlotte Yonge and Lewis Carroll Play at Mallets and Hoops.”  Romantic and Victorian Entertainments: Graduate Student Literature Conference.  University of South Carolina.  Columbia, SC.  March 2007.
  • “Science, Billiards, and the Unplayful Child: Great Expectations, What Maisie Knew, and The Secret Garden.”  Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association Annual Conference.  Albuquerque, NM.  February 2007.
  • “Domestic Differences: Conceptions of Home in Juliana Ewing’s Six to Sixteen and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.”  18th and 19th Century British Women Writers Association (BWWA) annual conference.  Athens, GA.  March 2004. 

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