Jane Chance facts for kids

Jane Chance (born 1945) is an American expert who studies old English literature from the Middle Ages, topics about gender, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. She worked for many years at Rice University. Even after she retired, she is still a special professor there, called an Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita in English.

Jane Chance's Education

Jane Chance went to Purdue University and earned her first degree in English in 1967. She graduated with very high honors. Later, she continued her studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. There, she earned her master's degree in English in 1968. She then completed her PhD in Medieval English Literature in 1971.

Teaching and Leadership

Jane Chance started her teaching career at the University of Saskatchewan. In 1973, she moved to Rice University to teach Old English literature. She was the first woman to get a permanent teaching job in the English department there. In 2008, she became an Andrew W. Mellon Professor. She retired in 2011 and became a professor emerita. She also helped start a group called the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages.

At Rice, Professor Chance created the Medieval Studies Program. She also led the first Women's Studies program within the English department. This program was well-known across the country. In 1982, she was the first woman professor at Rice University to get maternity leave. In the late 1980s, she was the first president of the Rice Commission on Women. In 1995, she started a special award called the Julia Mile Chance Prize for Excellence in Teaching. This award is named after her mother and honors women professors.

Exploring Old Stories and Myths

Jane Chance has written many books about old stories and myths. One of her early books, published in 1975, was about the idea of a "genius figure" in ancient and medieval times.

Starting in 1994, she began publishing a three-book series about the history of medieval mythography. This is the study of how myths were written down and understood in the Middle Ages.

• The first book, From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177, was called "monumental" and "highly detailed" by one reviewer.
• The second book, From the School of Chartres to the Court at Avignon, 1177–1350, was described as "immensely learned and ambitious."
• The final book, The Emergence of Italian Humanism, 1321–1475, came out in 2015.

She also wrote Mythographic Chaucer: the Fabulation of Sexual Politics in 1995.

Professor Chance has also focused on women in the Middle Ages and gender studies.

• Her book Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (1986) looked at how women were seen as heroes, including their role as "peace-weavers."
• She also wrote The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women (2007).
• She edited other important books like Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages (1996) and Women Medievalists and the Academy (2005). The latter was called "massive in size and major in significance" by a reviewer.

Her Work on J. R. R. Tolkien

Jane Chance is a leading expert on J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

• Her book Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythology for England' (first published in 1979 and updated in 2001) is considered one of the first scholarly studies of Tolkien's works. It helps people understand Middle-earth in a new way, using ideas from the Middle Ages.
• She also wrote The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (1992; revised 2001).
• Other books include Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader (2004) and Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature" (2016). This last book is a biography of Tolkien combined with literary analysis.

Professor Chance has also appeared in TV programs about Tolkien.

• In 2001, she was featured in a National Geographic episode called "Beyond the Movie: The Lord of the Rings."
• An interview she did with National Geographic was also included in the special DVD edition of Peter Jackson's movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Jane Chance has received many awards and honors for her work.

• In 1980, she was given a Guggenheim Fellowship, which is a special award for people doing important research.
• She also became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
• In 1998, she won the IMPACT Award for Outstanding Rice Faculty Women from Rice University.

She received many fellowships over the years to support her research on medieval mythography.

• These include a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship in the late 1970s.
• She also had a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio in Lake Como, Italy, in 1988.
• In the late 1980s, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
• In the mid-1990s, she was an Eccles Research Fellow at the University of Utah.

She won awards from the SCMLA for her Medieval Mythography series and for The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women.

In 2013, Purdue University gave her an honorary doctorate degree. She was also honored at a special meeting called the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Film Appearances