Rate My Professor Jocelyn Harris

Emerita Professor Jocelyn Harris holds an MA from the University of Otago and a PhD from the University of London. She returned to the English Department at the University of Otago after her doctoral studies, teaching there from 1968 and serving as Professor from 1994 until her retirement as Emerita Professor in 2005. During her career, she was Head of the Department of English, represented academic staff on the University Council, and was the first president of the Otago University Staff Women's Caucus.

Her research focuses on eighteenth-century literature and women's literature, particularly the works of Jane Austen and Samuel Richardson. Key publications include Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen (Bucknell University Press, 2017), A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen's Persuasion (University of Delaware Press, 2007), Jane Austen's Art of Memory (Cambridge University Press, 2003), Samuel Richardson (Cambridge University Press, 1987), and her edition of The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Otago University Printery, 2001). Recent contributions feature the chapter 'What Jane Saw in Henrietta Street' in Art and Artifact in Austen (University of Delaware Press, 2020) and reviews in Modern Philology (2020) and Times Higher Education (2018). She has presented public seminars such as 'The Many Faces of Captain Wentworth and the Making of Persuasion' at the University of Otago in 2017. In 2009, she was appointed Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to education. A festschrift titled New Windows on a Woman's World: Essays for Jocelyn Harris appeared in 2005.