Zoe Jaques

Zoe Jaques is a University Reader in Children’s Literature and Dean of Homerton College at the University of Cambridge. Her work bridges literary theory, philosophy, and children’s literature, with focuses on animal studies, ecocriticism, and posthumanism. She has held fellowships at Harvard, the University of Texas, and Kent State University, and her research has been supported by the British Academy and Sasakawa Foundation.

Education: BA (Hons) English Literature, MA English Studies, PhD in English Literature, PGCert in Higher Education. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and member of multiple literary societies including the Children’s Literature Association and International Board on Books for Young People.

Research interests span intersections of children’s literature with animal ethics, environmental critique, film (especially Disney), and the history of the book. Recent articles explore poetry memorization in schools, posthumanism in Philip Pullman’s works, and ecological themes in fantasy.

Current projects include the Cambridge History of Children's Literature in English and studies on entomology in Victorian childhood narratives. She supervises diverse PhD topics ranging from disability representation to posthumanist ontology in children’s texts.

Awards include the 2017 Louise Betchel Visiting Professorship and 2013 Katharine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellowship. Active in academic leadership, she previously taught at Anglia Ruskin University and Birkbeck College, London.