Publications

Authored books
In preparation. Smith, Michelle J. Manufacturing Female Beauty in British Literature and Periodicals, 1850-1914. Contracted to Edinburgh University Press.

Smith, Michelle J., Kristine Moruzi and Clare Bradford. From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Children’s Literature (1840-1940). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Smith, Michelle J. Empire in British Girls’ Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880-1915. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
[Winner of ESSE Book Award 2012: Junior Scholar (Literatures in English)]

Edited books
Smith, Michelle J. and Kristine Moruzi (eds). Young Adult Gothic Fiction: Monstrous Selves/Monstrous Others. University of Wales Press, 2021.

Moore, Grace and Michelle J. Smith (eds). Victorian Environments: Acclimatizing to Change in British Domestic and Colonial Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Moruzi, Kristine, Michelle J. Smith and Elizabeth Bullen (eds). Affect, Emotion and Children’s Literature:  Representation and Socialisation in Texts for Children and Young Adults. London: Routledge, 2017.

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle J. Smith (eds). Colonial Girlhood in Literature, Culture and History, 1840-1950. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle J. Smith (eds). Girls' School Stories, 1749-1929. 'History of Feminism’ series, 6 vols. London: Routledge, 2013.

Journal issues
Bullen, Elizabeth, Kristine Moruzi and Michelle J. Smith. Emotion in Children's Literature special issue of Papers 23.2 (2015).

Smith, Michelle (ed.). Neo-Victorian special issue of Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies 18.3 (2013).

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle J. Smith (eds). Colonial Girlhood special issue of Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies 18.1 (2013).

Book chapters
Smith, Michelle J. “Children’s and Young Adult Literature, 1841 to the Present.” The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel. Ed. David Carter. Cambridge UP. [Invited chapter]
 
​Smith, Michelle J. “The New Idea (1902-1911) and the Origins of the Australian Women’s Magazine.” The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals. Ed. Caroline Davis et al. Edinburgh UP. [Invited chapter]

Smith, Michelle J. “Ideas of Physical Beauty: Female Beauty in Western Medical and Aesthetic Texts.” Cultural History of Beauty in the Age of Empire. Ed. Jessica P. Clark. Bloomsbury. Forthcoming.

Smith, Michelle J. “The Redemption of the Larrikin at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” The Routledge Companion to AustralianLiterature. Ed. Jessica Gildersleeve. Routledge, 2020, pp. 18-24.

Smith, Michelle J. and Kristine Moruzi, “Young Adult Gothic Fiction”, The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic. Ed. Clive Bloom. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 609-622.

Smith, Michelle J. “Beauty Advice and Advertising in Late-Victorian Fashion Magazines”, Women, Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1830s-1900s: The Victorian Period. Ed. Alexis Easley, Clare Gill, and Beth Rodgers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 218-231.

Moore, Grace and Michelle J. Smith. “Victorian Environments.” Victorian Environments: Acclimatizing to Change in British Domestic andColonial Culture, Ed. Grace Moore and Michelle J. Smith.  London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1‑16.

Smith, Michelle J.,  “‘She cannot smile the smile that wells up from the heart’: Acceptable Beauty in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Girls’ Print Culture.” Emotion, Affect, and Children’s Literature: Representation and Socialisation in Texts for Children and Young Adults. Ed. Moruzi, Smith and Bullen. London: Routledge, 2017. 66-78.

Smith, Michelle J. “Ghostly Children in Contemporary Literature for Young People”, The Gothic and Death. Ed. Carol Davison. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp. 191-203.

Smith, Michelle J. “Transforming Narratives of Colonial Danger: The Environment in New Zealand and Australian Children’s Literature, 1862-1899”, Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Simon Sleight and Shirleene Robinson, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 183-200.

Smith, Michelle J., “Wild Australian Girls? The Mythology of Colonial Femininity in British Print Culture, 1880-1926”, Girls, Texts, Cultures, Ed. Mavis Reimer and Clare Bradford, Waterloo, Ont., Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015. 237-260.

Smith, Michelle J. “‘But What is His Country?’ Producing Australian Identity in the Victorian School Paper, 1896-1918”, Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat. Ed. Mavis Reimer et al. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 129-148.

Smith, Michelle J. “The ‘Australian Girl’ and the Domestic Ideal in Colonial Women’s Fiction”, Domestic Fiction in Colonial Australia and New Zealand. Ed. Tamara S. Wagner, London, Pickering and Chatto, 2014. 75-90.

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle J. Smith. “Education and Work in Service of the Nation: Canadian and Australian Girls' Fiction, 1908-1921”, Colonial Girlhood in Literature, Culture and History, 1840-1950, Eds Kristine Moruzi and Michelle J. Smith, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 180-194.

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle J. Smith. “‘A great, strange world’: Reading the Girls’ School Story”, Girls' School Stories, 1749-1929, London, Routledge, 2013. xiii-xxxii.

Smith, Michelle J., “The Postmodern Vampire in ‘Post-Race’ America: HBO's True Blood”, Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present, Ed. Bill Hughes and Sam George. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013. 192-209.

Smith, Michelle J., “On the Origin of Men: Boyhood, Darwinism and Tarzan of the Apes”, Global Perspectives on Tarzan: From King of the Jungle to International Icon, Ed. Michelle Ann Abate and Annette Wannamaker, London and New York, Routledge, 2012. 165-179.

Smith, Michelle J., “Nineteenth-Century Female Crusoes: Rewriting the Robinsonade for Girls”, Relocating Victorian Settler Narratives: Emigrants, Exiles, Returnees in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Ed. Tamara Wagner, London, Pickering and Chatto, 2011. 165-176.

Hoorn, Jeanette and Michelle Smith, “Rudall Hayward’s Democratic Cinema and the Civilising Mission in ‘the Land of the Wrong White Crowd’”, New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting the Past, Ed. Alistair Fox, Barry Keith Grant and Hilary Radner, Intellect/Chicago University Press, 2011. 65-82.

Smith, Michelle, “‘Girls, Girls, Everywhere!’ Angela Brazil’s Edwardian School Stories”, Worlds Enough and Time: Childhood in Edwardian Fiction, Ed. Adrienne Gavin and Andrew Humphries, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 143–158.


Journal articles
Smith, Michelle J. and Jane Nicholas. “Soft Rejuvenation: Cosmetics, Idealized White Femininity, and Young Women’s Bodies, 1880-1930”, Journal of Social History, 53.4 (2020): 906-921.

Smith, Michelle J. “Imagining Colonial Environments: Fire in Australian Children’s Literature, 1841-1910”, International Research in Children's Literature 13.1 (2020): 1-14.

Smith, Michelle J. and Kristine Moruzi. “Daughters of Greater Britain: The Colonial 'New Girl' in Victorian Girls' Periodicals.” Victorian Periodicals Review 52.4 (2019): 701-716. Special issue in honour of Sally Mitchell.

Smith, Michelle J. and Kristine Moruzi. “Vampires and Witches Go to School: Contemporary Young Adult Fiction, Gender, and the Gothic”, Children’s Literature in Education 43.1 (2018): 6-18.

Smith, Michelle J. and Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario. "Race, Species and the Other: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in Victorian Pantomime and Children’s Literature." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 37.6 (2016): 37-53.

Smith, Michelle J. "Colonial Feminism and Australian Literary Culture in Ethel and Lilian Turner's the Parthenon, 1889-1892”Women's Writing 21. 2 (2014): 185-201. Special issue on Australian and New Zealand Girls' Culture.

Smith, Michelle J. and Kristine Moruzi. Colonial Girls' Literature and the Politics of Archives in the Digital Age”, Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature 22.1 (2012): 33-41. [Full-text]

Smith, Michelle J. and Elizabeth Parsons. “Animating Child Activism: Environmentalism and Class Politics in Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke (1997) and Fox’s Fern Gully (1992)”, Continuum 26.1 (2012): 25-37.

Moruzi, Kristine and Michelle Smith, “‘Learning What Real Work…Means’: Ambiguous Attitudes Towards Employment in the Girl’s Own Paper”, Victorian Periodicals Review 43.4 (2010): 429-445.

Smith, Michelle, “E. Nesbit’s Psammead Trilogy: Reconfiguring Time, Nation and Gender”, ELT: English Literature in Transition 52.3 (2009): 298-311.

Smith, Michelle, “Adventurous Girls of the Empire: The Pre-War Novels of Bessie Marchant”, The Lion and the Unicorn 33.1 (2009): 1-25.

Smith, Michelle, “Be(ing) Prepared: Girl Guides, Colonial Life, and National Strength”, Limina 12 (2006): 52–62. [Full-text]

Book reviews


Smith, Michelle J. Review of BronwynLowe’s“The Right Thing to Read”: A History of Australian Girl-Readers,1910-1960, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 12.3 (2019): 501-503.

Smith, Michelle J. "Ethel Turner, Tales from the Parthenon; Eleanor Dark, Eleanor Dark’s Juvenilia; Mary Grant Bruce, The Early Tales." JASAL 14.5 (2014): 1-4.

Smith, Michelle J. "Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999-2009." Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies 18.3 (2013): 113-114.

Commissioned essays and entries
Smith, Michelle J. “That’s the great puzzle: who am I?”: Jonathan Miller’s
Alice in Wonderland (1966). Wonderland. Thames & Hudson, 2018.

Smith, Michelle J. Entry for Enid Moodie Heddle. Australian Dictionary of Biography. 2018.

Smith, Michelle J. “‘You’re a frigid bitch and your friend in a homo’: Coming of Age in Girl Asleep.” Senses of Cinema 81 (2016).

Smith, Michelle J. “Female Beauty in Nineteenth-Century British Print Culture.” Commissioned essay for British Library Newspapers database, Gale Cengage, 2016.


Newspaper and online articles
Smith, Michelle. "Clementine Ford reveals the fragility behind ‘toxic masculinity’ in Boys Will Be Boys." The Conversation 26 September 2018.

Smith, Michelle. "Friday essay: why YA gothic fiction is booming - and girl monsters are on the rise." The Conversation 20 July 2018.

Smith, Michelle. "
#MeToo and #TimesUp move off the red carpet and towards activism at 2018 Oscars." The Conversation 6 March 2018. 

Smith, Michelle. "From Sleeping Beauty to the Frog Prince- Why we Shouldn't Ban Fairy Tales." The Conversation 3 January 2018. 

Smith, Michelle. "Rethinking Harry Potter Twenty Years On." The Conversation 2 November 2017.


Smith, Michelle. "Friday Essay: Toxic Beauty, Then and Now." The Conversation 20 October 2017. Republished at Sydney Morning Herald.

Smith, Michelle. "Playboy, Brooke Shields and the Fetishisation of Young Girls." The Conversation 11 October 2017. Republished at MamaMia.

Smith, Michelle. “UK Crackdown on Gender Stereotypes in Advertising Shows up Australia’s Low Bar.” The Conversation 2 August 2017. Republished at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Smith, Michelle. “Friday Essay: Double Standards and Derision – Tracing Our Attitudes to Older Women and Beauty.The Conversation 7 July 2017. Republished at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Smith, Michelle. “Inventing the Wicked Witch: Review of Susan Bordo’s The Destruction of Hillary Clinton.” The Conversation 28 April 2017.

Smith, Michelle. “NRL Teams Should Axe the Cheerleaders the Pick Only for Their Looks.” Sydney Morning Herald 2 March 2017.

Smith, Michelle. “Friday Essay: Transgenderism in Film and Literature.” The Conversation 31 January 2017. Republished at ABC News, Pink News.

Smith, Michelle. "Friday Essay: Talking, Writing and Fighting Like Girls." The Conversation 30 September 2016. Republished at Women's Agenda.

Smith, Michelle. "'Not Fit to be President': Hillary Clinton and Our Problem with Older Women." The Conversation 20 September 2016. Republished at sbs.com.au

Smith, Michelle. "From Scolds to 'Talking Underwater'": Policing Women's Voices." The Conversation 5 July 2016.

Smith, Michelle. "Meg Ryan's Face and the Historical Battleground of Ageing." The Conversation 16 June 2016. Republished at sbs.com.au

Smith, Michelle. “Friday Essay: The Ugly History of Cosmetic Surgery.” The Conversation 29 April 2016. Republished at Scroll [India].

“Why ‘Uber for women’ is not Discriminatory.” The Conversation 19 April 2016.

“In the World of Goodreads, do we Still Need Book Reviewers?” The Conversation 18 March 2016.

“No, You’re Not ‘Hardwired’ to Stare at Women’s Breasts.” The Conversation 1 February 2016. Republished at IFL Science, Mamamia, Scroll [India].

Smith, Michelle. "Witches Both Mad and Bad: A Loaded Word with an Ugly History." The Conversation 6 January 2014.

Smith, Michelle. "Suffragette Reminds Us Why It's a Lie That Feminists Need Men's Approval." The Guardian 29 December 2015.

Smith, Michelle. "Bah, Humbug: The Misery of Christmas in Classic Literature." The Conversation 17 December 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Alice in Wonderland at 150: Why Fantasy Stories about Girls Transcend Time.” The Conversation  26 October 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Humanities Research in the Digital Age.” Association of Commonwealth Universities blog. 30 October 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Booker Prize: Shortlist Echoes Literature’s Mixed Progress on Equality.” The Drum 17 September 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Sex and Other Reasons Why We Ban Books for Young People.” The Conversation 14 September 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “The Evolution of Female Pen-Names from Currer Bell to J. K. Rowling.” The Conversation 31 August 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Review/ Has Got Set a Watchman Helped Topple the Notion of the White Saviour.” The Conversation 22 July 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “The Eye of the Sheep and Other Novels Told Through the Eyes of a Child.” The Conversation 2 July 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “The Literary Pilgrimage: From Brontëites to Twihards.” The Conversation 18 June 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Honouring Free Speech or Hate Speech? Writers Weigh in on Award to Charlie Hebdo.” The Conversation 1 May 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Debut Novelist Emily Bitto Wins the Stella Prize.” The Conversation 22 April 2015.

Smith, Michelle. "The 'hole' in the Pantry Story: Should Penguin have Validated Belle Gibson's Cancer Claims?" The Conversation 16 March 2015.

Smith, Michelle. "Stella Prize 2015 Shortlist Highlights New Literary Voices." The Conversation 13 March 2015.

Smith, Michelle. "To Kill a Mockingbird, My Brilliant Career and Long-Lost 'Sequels'." The Conversation 9 February 2015.

Smith, Michelle. “Was Colleen McCullough Under-regarded as a Writer? The Next Few Chapters Will Tell." The Conversation 30 January 2015.

Smith, Michelle. The 'death' of J.K. Rowling: Why it Doesn't Matter What She Has to Say About Harry Potter.  The Conversation 22 December 2014. Republished at the Washington Post, www.sbs.com.au.

Smith, Michelle. Barbie for Boys: The Gendered Tyranny of the Toy Store, The Conversation 4 December 2014. Republished at sbs.com.au

Smith, Michelle. A Spurr to Abandoning the Literary Canon, The Conversation 28 October 2014.

Smith, Michelle. Flanagan wins the Booker: But Will British and Commonwealth Writers Soon be Obscured by Americans? The Conversation, 15 October 2014. Republished at The Drum.

Smith, Michelle. 
'I'm not a feminist, but...': Feminism and Identity in Australia.  Right Now: Human Rights in Australia. 14 October 2014.

Smith, Michelle. So Jane Caro Thinks Traditional Marriage is Prostitution...The Conversation. 3 September 2014.

Smith, Michelle. 'Offensiveness' and Children's Books: Censoring 'Slut' from a Roald Dahl Classic.The Conversation. 31 August 2014.

Smith, Michelle. Unhappily Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales of Motherhood by Danielle Wood.The Conversation, 20 August 2014.

Smith, Michelle. Actually, women, You Do Need Feminism.The Conversation. 18 August 2014.
Republished at the Washington Post, New Statesman, Women's Agenda


Smith, Michelle. Has the Death of the Bookshop Greatly Exaggerated?The Conversation, 2 August 2014. 

Smith, Michelle. Hard Times: Are Authors Worth as Much as Athletes?The Conversation, 16 July 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “And the Winner of the Miles Franklin Award Is... EvieWyld.The Conversation, 26 June 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Reading Children’s Literature is Not Embarrassing.” The Conversation, 17 June 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Political Bias and the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.” The Conversation, 5 June 2014. 

Smith, Michelle. “'Great Books', Nationhood, and Teaching English Literature.The Conversation, 2 June 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Should Literature Come with Trigger Warnings?The Conversation, 22 May 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Book Traces: Crowdsourcing the History of 19th-Century Books and Reading.” The Conversation, 16 May 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “The Importance of Women’s Literary Prizes.The Conversation, 5 May 2014.

Smith Michelle. “Valuing Our Treasured Print History in the Era of the 'Bookless' Library.The Conversation, 22 April 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Saying 'I Don't' to Reality TV Romance.” The Conversation, 19 April 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Our Fascination With 'Bogans' Will Be Televised.” The Conversation, 4 April 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “The Truth About Madonna's Hairy Armpits and Sexy Older Women.” The Conversation, 24 March 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “What YouTube Has Done to the Music Video Star.” The Conversation, 16 March 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “The Case for Henry Handel Richardson's The Getting of Wisdom.The Conversation, 12 March 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “TV and Film Play a Part in Challenges to Reproductive Rights.” The Conversation, 21 February 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Did She Do It? The Ethics of the Schapelle Corby Telemovie.”, The Conversation, 5 February 2014. Republished at Mamamia, Northern Star and Range News.

Smith, Michelle. “The AACTA Awards and Australia’s ‘National Imagination.’” The Conversation, 31 January 2014.

Smith, Michelle. “Would You Like a Serve of Fatphobia with That? The Biggest Loser Returns”, The Conversation, 20 January 2014.

Smith, Michelle, “TV Drama Doesn’t Have to be ‘Historically Accurate’: The Case for Racial Diversity.” The Conversation, 11 January 2014.

Smith, Michelle, “Will TV Series go the Way of Charles Dickens?” The Conversation, 30 December 2013.

Smith, Michelle, “Children’s TV is Political...Even Peppa Pig.The Conversation, 15 December 2013.

Smith, Michelle, “Does Australian TV Need the ABC?The Conversation, 6 December 2013.

Smith, Michelle, “Cultural Cringe and Ja’mie, Private School Girl.” The Conversation, 26 November 2013. Republished at sbs.com.au.

Smith, Michelle. “Boobs vs Brawn: The TV Debut of Lingerie Football.” The Conversation, 19 November 2013. Republished at sbs.com.au and Women’s Agenda.

Smith, Michelle. “A TV Viewer’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse.” The Conversation, 11 November 2013. Republished at sbs.com.au.

Smith, Michelle. “TV Presenters, Sexism and the Attractiveness Double Standard.” The Conversation, 3 Nov. 2013. Republished at Women’s Agenda.

Smith, Michelle. "Miley Cyrus, Sinead O'Connor and the Future of Feminism." The Conversation, 8 October 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "What's Wrong With Merit? Why "Equal" Treatment Does Not Reward the Most Deserving." The Conversation, 19 September 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "Tony Abbott's Women in White a Symbol of What's to Come." The Age (Melbourne), 11 September 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "Duly Noted: Online Abuse Will Not Silence Women." The Age (Melbourne), 30 July 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "MasterChef Offers a Slice of Sexism." The Age (Melbourne), 27 April 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "Women Lost in the Academy: Why We Need Gender Studies." The Conversation, 17 April 2013.

Smith, Michelle. "Girl Power Eroded by Cheap and Smutty Schoolgirl Photos." The Age (Melbourne), 6 November 2012.

Smith, Michelle. “Frills and Spills of Lingerie Football Tackle All Women Hard.” The Age (Melbourne), 6 June 2012.

Smith, Michelle. "Lego Makes Sure that Boys Will be Boys and Girls Will be Girls." The Age (Melbourne), 27 December 2011, p. 13.

Smith, Michelle. "Women in Australia's Military: On the Front Line of the Gender War." The Conversation, 11 November 2011.

Smith, Michelle. "Bert and Ernie Should Come Out of Sesame Street's Closet." The Age (Melbourne), 19 August 2011. [Also printed in the Sydney Morning Herald.]

Smith, Michelle. “Child Beauty Pageants are Hideously Ugly.” The Age (Melbourne), 19 May 2011, p. 15.

Smith, Michelle. “The Royal Wedding and the Lure of the Princess Myth.” The Conversation, 28 April 2011.

Smith, Michelle, “The St Kilda Schoolgirl and Our Troubled Relationship with Tricky Women”, The Conversation, 23 March 2011.

Smith, Michelle, “Criticism of ‘Dangerous’ School Text Ignores Literature’s Role in Learning”, The Age (Melbourne), 18 February 2011, p.13. (Republished at On Line Opinion.)

Smith, Michelle, “The Apostrophe Joins the Endangered List”, On Line Opinion, 20 December 2010.

Smith, Michelle, “Guiding Light for a New Generation”, The Age (Melbourne), 8 October 2010, p.17.

Smith, Michelle, “Tim Burton’s Version of Alice Says a Lot About How We Think of Girls”, The Age (Melbourne), 11 March 2010, p. 23. (Print only)