Kathryn Carter

Dr. Carter researches women's diaries written in Canada, with special attention to those from the 19th century. This has led her to develop expertise in women's writing, 19th-century Canadian culture, Canadian literature, cultural studies, and life writing, especially as it intersects with the narratives of history. She has recently published an article summarizing feminist scholarship on diary writing for an essay collection entitled The Diary: The Epic of Everyday Life (Illinois University Press, 2020). She is also interested in letters written by emigrants, especially from Ireland. 

See Dr. Carter's public talk on Irish letters at Queen's University, Belfast:

Irish Diaries and Letters as Material Artefacts of Settler Colonialism

Academic Honours

• 2015: Full Merit Award, Wilfrid Laurier University
• 2010: Full Merit Award, Wilfrid Laurier University.
• 2007: Full Merit Award, Wilfrid Laurier University.
• 2006: Society for Digital Humanities Outstanding Achievement Award, Orlando Project.
• 2006: Nominated for best article in English (internationally) on the history of children, childhood, or youth in 2005-2006 (Society for the History of Children and Youth): “Discipline, Bodies, and Girls’ Diaries in Post-Confederation Canada.”
• 1999: "An Economy of Words: Emma Chadwick Stretch’s Account Book Diary, 1859-1860," nominated for Hilda Neatby Prize for the best English-language essay on women’s history published in Canada.

Teaching Awards

• 2011: Teaching Wall of Fame, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta.
• 2002-2003: Nominated for Best Professor at Laurier Brantford.
• 1993-1994: Graduate Student Teaching Award of Excellence.
• 1993-1994: Outstanding Teaching Assistant, Department of English.

I am willing to supervise graduate students in the areas of life writing, Canadian literature, children's literature, book history (especially the publishing history of nineteenth-century Ontario), and social entrepreneurship (with a special emphasis on developing cultural initiatives).

Scholarly Books

Authored:

• 1997: Carter, Kathryn. “Diaries in English by Women in Canada, 1753 1995: An Annotated Bibliography.” Feminist Voices No. 4. Ottawa: Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. (106 pp.)

Edited:

• 2002:  “The Small Details of Life: Twenty Diaries by Women in Canada, 1830-1996.” Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. (368 pp/ 18 halftones.)

Papers in Refereed Journals

Authored:

• 2022: Carter, Kathryn, "Transatlantic Letters and Settler Identities: Jane White Writes to Ireland, 1849-1865." Journal of Epistolary Studies. 
• 2020: Carter, Kathryn. “Feminist Interpretations of the Diary.” The Diary. Eds. Batsheva Ben-Amos and Dan Ben-Amos, Indiana University Press. 
• 2015: Carter, Kathryn. “Accounting for time in 19th-century manuscript diaries and photographs.” Life Writing (Oxford).
• 2006: Carter, Kathryn. “Discipline, Bodies, and Girls’ Diaries in Post-Confederation Canada" Canadian Children’s Literature. 32.2 (Fall) 16-36.
• 2006: Carter, Kathryn. “Death and the diary, or tragedies in the archive.” Journal of Canadian Studies. 40:2 (Spring) 42-59.
• 2004: Carter, Kathryn. "The Circulating Self: Frances Simpson’s 1830 ‘Journal of a Voyage from Montreal . . .’" Australian Canadian Studies: The Status of Women in Canada and Australia 22.1: 9-34.
• 1999: Carter, Kathryn. "An Economy of Words: Emma Chadwick Stretch’s Account Book Diary, 1859 1860." Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region 29.1 (Autumn): 43 56.
• 1997: Carter, Kathryn. "The Cultural Work of Diaries in Mid Century Victorian Britain." Victorian Review 23.2 (Winter): 251 267.

Co-Authored:

• 2006: With Susan Brown, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy, Jeffrey Antoniuk, Sharon Farnel, Jane Haslett, and Kathryn Carter, “Facing the Deep: The Orlando Project Delivery System 1.0.” TEXT Technology 1: 19-39.
• 1998: Susan Hockey, Patricia Clements, Susan Fisher and Susan Brown with Isobel Grundy, Terry Butler, Katherine Binhammer, Kathryn Carter, Kathryn Harvey and Jeanne Wood. "The Orlando Project: Building Digital Resources for an Integrated History of Women’s Writing in the British Isles."  The Digital Demotic: Selected Papers from DRH97, Digital Resources for the Humanities Conference. Eds. Lou Burnard, Marilyn Deegan, and Harold Short.  London: Office for Humanities Communication: 25-38.
• 1998: Susan Brown and Patricia Clements, with Isobel Grundy, Terry Butler, Susan Hockey, Susan Fisher, Kate Carter, Kathryn Harvey, and Jeanne Wood. "Tag Team: Computing, Collaborators, and the History of Women’s Writing in the British Isles." Technologising the Humanities/ Humanitising the Technologies. Special issue of Computing in the Humanities Working Papers. Ed. R. G. Siemens and William Winder. Text/Technology 8: 37-52.
• 1998: Susan Brown and Patricia Clements, with Isobel Grundy, Terry Butler, Susan Hockey, Susan Fisher, Kate Carter, Kathryn Harvey, and Jeanne Wood. "SGML and the Orlando Project: Descriptive Markup for an Electronic History of Women’s Writing." Computers and the Humanities 31: 271-85.

Refereed Electronic Database

• 2006: With Clement, Patricia, Isobel Grundy, and Susan Brown, eds. “The Orlando Project: An Integrated History of Women’s Writing in the British Isles”, Cambridge University Press, http://www.ualberta.ca/ORLANDO/ (20,000 listings; 1,000 authors).