Jocelyn Harris

{{Short description|New Zealand Jane Austen scholar; co-founder of Dunedin Collective for Woman}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Jocelyn Harris

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CNZM|size=100%}}

| image =

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| birth_name = Jocelyn Margaret Wood

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1939}}

| birth_place = Dunedin, New Zealand

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| boards = TVNZ

| spouse =

| relatives = Angus Ross (stepfather)

| website = {{URL|https://www.jocelynharris.co.nz}}

| education = PhD

| alma_mater = Birkbeck, University of London

| thesis_title = Sir Charles Grandison and the Little Senate : the relation between Samuel Richardson's correspondence and his last novel

| thesis_url = https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110926373

| thesis_year = 1966

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| discipline = English literature

| sub_discipline = 18th-century English literature

| workplaces = University of Otago

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| main_interests = {{Hlist|18th-century literature|Women's literature|Jane Austen}}

| notable_works = {{ubl|The History of Sir Charles Grandison (as editor)|Jane Austen and the Art of Memory}}

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}}

Jocelyn Margaret Harris {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CNZM|size=100%}} (née Wood; born 1939) is a New Zealand academic known for her studies of Jane Austen's creative process, and for her promotion of the teaching and study of women's literature at the University of Otago.

Harris was a founding member of the Dunedin Collective for Woman, and from 1970 until 2005 taught at the University of Otago, of which she remains professor emerita.{{cite web |title=Emerita Professor Jocelyn Harris |url=https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/staff/otago090947.html |website=English and Linguistics |date=2 August 2019 |publisher=University of Otago |access-date=25 August 2021}}

Harris is a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit

{{cite web

| url=https://dpmc.govt.nz/publications/new-year-honours-list-2009

|title=New Year Honours List 2009

|date=31 December 2008

}} and a Chevalier de l'ordre de Mérite.

Personal life

Harris was born Jocelyn Margaret Wood in 1939{{cite web |url=https://www.kotuia.org.nz/collection-item/53353267/ |title=Professor Jocelyn Harris |website=Kōtuia |access-date=14 March 2024}} in Dunedin, where her father, Win Wood, was a school-teacher{{cite web |title=Anzac Day |url=http://www.kingshigholdboys.co.nz/?page_id=336 |website=Kings High School |access-date=26 August 2021}} and her mother Margot (née Garrett) was an Otago history graduate and radio presenter. Harris was raised by her mother after her father died as an artillery major in North Africa. In 1950 Margot remarried military historian Angus Ross, who later became Otago's professor of history.{{cite book |title=Roll of the Graduates of the University of Otago |date=1989 |publisher=University of Otago |page=423}}

Jocelyn attended Otago Girls' High School, then followed her mother and step-father into study at the University of Otago. As an undergraduate, she was elected "lady vice-president" of the Student Association in 1961.

{{cite web

| title=University of Otago 1869-2019 ~ writing a history

| url= https://otago150years.wordpress.com/tag/pranks/

}}

She studied for her PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London, where her title was 'Sir Charles Grandison and the Little Senate: the relation between Samuel Richardson's correspondence and his last novel'.

{{Cite book

|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110926373

|title=Sir Charles Grandison and the Little Senate: the relation between Samuel Richardson's correspondence and his last novel

|first=Jocelyn|last=Harris

|date=August 26, 1968

|oclc=1110926373

|via=Open WorldCat

}}

In 1970 she returned to Dunedin to take up a faculty role at Otago's Department of English.

Academic career

In her teaching and as a senior academic, Harris 'almost single-handedly established a place for the academic study of women's writing and in particular, contemporary New Zealand women's writing within the full spectrum of studies in "English" literature offered at the University of Otago.'

{{cite book

|last1=Gibson |first1=Colin

|last2=Marr |first2=Lisa

|editor1-last=Gibson |editor1-first=Colin

|editor2-last=Marr |editor2-first=Lisa

|title=New Windows on a Woman's World: Essays for Jocelyn Harris

|publisher=Department of English, University of Otago

|isbn=1-877139-89-0

|page=ix

|language=EN

}}

In her own academic writing, it was Harris' ground-breaking analysis of Austen's debt to Richardson in her Jane Austen and the Art of Memory that unequivocably established her standing as a scholar of international reputation. That was followed by A revolution almost beyond expression: Jane Austen's Persuasion in 2007, and Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen in 2017. Her first major publication was the 1972 edition of The History of Sir Charles Grandison for Oxford University Press.

{{cite book

|last= Harris |first= Jocelyn

|date= 1972|title= Sir Charles Grandison

|location= Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press

|isbn=0-19-281745-0

}}

Harris also served as a representative for academic staff on the Otago University Council, and was the first president of the Otago University Staff Women's Caucus.

Harris was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to education, in the 2009 New Year Honours.

{{cite news

|last1=Lewis |first1=John

|title=Delighted at honour for work she loves

|url=https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/delighted-honour-work-she-loves

|access-date=29 May 2021 |agency=Otago Daily Times

|date=31 December 2008

}}

Community service

Harris was one of the founding members of the Dunedin Collective for Woman. In the 1980s, she was a panelist on the 'agony aunt' television series Beauty and the Beast.{{cite web |title=Beauty and the Beast |url=https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/beauty-and-the-beast-1976/series |website=New Zealand Onscreen. Iwi Whitiahua |access-date=24 August 2021}} Harris served on the board of Television New Zealand in the 1990s. Her work as the honorary consul for France in Dunedin was recognised by the award of Chevalier of the National Order of Merit.

Harris was also involved in many protest movements including the Save Aramoana Campaign.{{Cite web |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/42971471 |title=[Resilient] / by Tom McKinlay [and others] |access-date=2024-08-22 |website=National Library of New Zealand}}

Works

=Authored books=

Harris, J. (2017) Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen, Bucknell University Press. {{ISBN| 9781611488395}}
Harris, J. (2007) A revolution almost beyond expression: Jane Austen's Persuasion. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 280p. {{ISBN|9780874139662}}
Harris, J. M. (2003) Jane Austen's Art of Memory. Cambridge University Press, 271p. {{ISBN| 9780521542074}}
Harris, J. M. (1987) Samuel Richardson Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|9780521315425}}

=Edited books=

Zunshine, L., & Harris, J. (eds.). (2006). Approaches to teaching the novels of Samuel Richardson. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 216p.
Harris, J. M. (ed.). (2001). Samuel Richardson,The History of Sir Charles Grandison (3 parts). Reprint, Dunedin: Otago University Printery (under licence from Oxford University Press), 681p. {{ISBN|0192817450}}
Waite, G. G., Harris, J. M., Murray, H. M., & Hale, J. K. (eds.). (1998). World and Stage: Essays for Colin Gibson. Dunedin: Otago Studies in English 6, 280p.