Jane Chance

{{Short description|American scholar}} {{Infobox person | name =  | image =  | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1945}} | birth_place = | death_date =  | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = | years_active = 1973–2011 | known_for = [[Tolkien studies]] | notable_works = ''[[Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythology for England']]'' }} '''Jane Chance''' (born 1945), also known as '''Jane Chance Nitzsche''', is an American scholar specializing in medieval English literature, gender studies, and [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]. She spent most of her career at [[Rice University]], where since her retirement she has been the [[Andrew Mellon|Andrew W. Mellon]] Distinguished [[Emeritus professor|Professor Emerita]] in English.

== Education ==

Chance earned her BA from [[Purdue University]] in 1967 with Highest Distinction and an Honors in English and her MA in English (1968) and PhD in Medieval English Literature (1971) from the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign]].<ref name=English>{{Cite web |url=http://english.rice.edu/chance.aspx |title=Jane Chance, 1973–2011 |publisher=Rice University Department of English |access-date=December 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221022215/http://english.rice.edu/chance.aspx |archive-date=December 21, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Teaching ==

She taught at the [[University of Saskatchewan]] and then moved to Rice University in 1973 to teach [[Old English literature]]; she was the first woman appointed to a [[Academic tenure|tenure-track]] position in the English department there.<ref name=Women>{{Cite web |url=https://cswgs.rice.edu/chance/ |title=Jane Chance |publisher=Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Rice University |access-date=December 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221022154/https://cswgs.rice.edu/chance/ |archive-date=December 21, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=longer>{{cite journal |author=Jane Chance |title='Mine is Longer': Gender Difference and Female Authority in the Academy |journal=Medieval Feminist Forum |year=2000 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=16–23 |doi=10.17077/1536-8742.1298 |doi-access=free }}</ref> She was appointed to the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in 2008 and became emerita upon her retirement in 2011.<ref name=English/><ref name=Women/> She is founder president of the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages.<ref name=longer/>

At Rice, Chance established what became the Medieval Studies Program; she headed the first Women's Studies program within the English department, which was nationally noted.<ref name=longer/> In 1982 she was the first ever woman on the faculty at Rice University to gain maternity leave.<ref name="longer" /> In the late 1980s she was the first president of the Rice Commission on Women.<ref name=Women/><ref name=longer/><ref>{{cite news |author=Joel Sendek |title=Female faculty assemble to investigate inequalities |newspaper=The Rice Thresher |date=April 10, 1987 |page=6 |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245664/m1/6/ }}</ref> She unsuccessfully sued the university for gender discrimination in 1988.<ref>{{cite news |author=Lisa Gray |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245694/m1/1/ |title=Chance charges university with discrimination |newspaper=The Rice Thresher |date=April 22, 1988 |page=1 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Lorraine Snyder |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245705/m1/1/ |title=Chance suit delayed, awaits new judge |newspaper=[[The Rice Thresher]] |date=November 4, 1988 |page=1 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Kraettli Epperson |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245796/m1/6/ |title=Chance appeals discrimination decision |newspaper=The Rice Thresher |date=November 8, 1991 |page=6 }}</ref> She attempted to appeal the case in the early 1990s but was unsuccessful. <ref name=":2">{{cite news |author=Kraettli Epperson |date=November 8, 1991 |title=Chance appeals discrimination decision |url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245796/m1/6/ |newspaper=The Rice Thresher |page=6}}</ref> In 1995 she established and funded the Julia Mile Chance Prize for Excellence in Teaching, named for her mother, "to honor women as teachers".<ref name=longer/>

== Comparative literature and medievalism ==

As Jane Chance Nitzsche, Chance published a revised version of her dissertation as ''The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages'' in 1975.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages'' by Jane Chance Nitzsche |author=D. W. Robertson Jr. |author-link=D. W. Robertson Jr. |journal=Comparative Literature |volume=28 |issue=3: ''Contemporary Criticism: Theory and Practice'' |date=Summer 1976 |page=288 |doi=10.2307/1769227 |jstor=1769227 }}</ref> Beginning in 1994, she published a three-volume history of medieval [[mythography]]. Volume I, ''From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177'', was termed "monumental" and "highly detailed" by Sarah Stanbury in ''[[Arthuriana]]'' who nonetheless found the focus on gender poorly supported;<ref>{{cite journal |author=Sarah Stanbury |title=Review: ''Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433-1177'' by JANE CHANCE |journal=[[Arthuriana]] |date=Winter 1995 |volume=5 |issue=4 |jstor=27869160 |pages=117–20 |doi=10.1353/art.1995.0011 |s2cid=161943734 }}</ref> although the reviewer in ''[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]]'' called it "disappointing";<ref name=longer/><ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177'', by Jane Chance |author=Winthrop Wetherbee |journal=[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]] |volume=72 |issue=1 |date=January 1997 |pages=125–27 |doi=10.2307/2865880 |jstor=2865880 }}</ref> Volume 2, ''From the School of Chartres to the Court at Avignon, 1177–1350'', was called "immensely learned and ambitious" in the same journal in 2002.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Medieval Mythography, 2: From the School of Chartres to the Court at Avignon, 1177–1350'' by Jane Chance |author=John Block Friedman |journal=Speculum |volume=77 |issue=4 |date=October 2002 |pages=1254–57 |doi=10.2307/3301233 |jstor=3301233 }}</ref> The final volume, ''The Emergence of Italian Humanism, 1321–1475'', appeared in 2015, and was judged by one reviewer to be less comprehensive than claimed.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Carrie Beneš |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19633/25720 |title=Review: Chance, Jane. ''Medieval Mythography, Volume 3: The Emergence of Italian Humanism, 1321–1475'' |journal=[[The Medieval Review]] |date=August 2015 }}</ref> In 1995 she also published ''Mythographic Chaucer: the Fabulation of Sexual Politics''.<ref name=Women/><ref name=Purdue>{{cite web |url=https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/Q2/jane-chance---doctor-of-letters-.html |title=Jane Chance - Doctor of Letters |publisher=[[Purdue University]] |date=May 2013 }}</ref>

Other works in which Chance focuses on medieval women and gender studies include ''Woman as Hero in Old English Literature'' (1986),<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Woman as Hero in Old English Literature'' by Jane Chance |author=Hope Weissman |journal=Speculum |volume=63 |issue=1 |date=January 1988 |pages=134–36 |doi=10.2307/2854337 |jstor=2854337 }}</ref> which investigated, among other things, the concept of women as [[peace-weaver]]s<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_YYqcas7hD4C&pg=PA36|title=Medieval Clothing and Textiles|editor1=Robin Netherton|editor2=Gale R. Owen-Crocker|editor2-link=Gale Owen-Crocker|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|year=2006|isbn=9781843831235|contribution=Textiles and Textile Imagery in the Exeter Book|author=Maren Clegg Hyer|pages=29–40}}</ref> and their frequent failure,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9tsQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA283|page=283|title=Weaving Words and Binding Bodies: The Poetics of Human Experience in Old English Literature|author=Megan Cavell |publisher=University of Toronto |year=2016|isbn=9781442637221}}</ref> and ''The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women'' (2007);<ref>{{cite journal |author=R. N. Swanson |title=Review: ''The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women''. By Jane Chance |journal=The Heythrop Journal |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2265.2011.00682_29.x |volume=52 |issue=5 |date=September 2011 |pages=856–57 |doi-access=free }}</ref> she edited ''Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages'' (1996)<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages'' by Jane Chance |author=Clare A. Lees |journal=[[The Journal of English and Germanic Philology]] |volume=97 |issue=1 |date=January 1998 |pages=105–07 |jstor=27711611 }}</ref> and ''Women Medievalists and the Academy'' (2005), which [[Helen Damico]], writing in ''[[JEGP]]'', called "massive in size and major in significance".<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Women Medievalists and the Academy'' by Jane Chance |author=Helen Damico |author-link=Helen Damico |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |volume=107 |issue=2 |date=April 2008 |pages= 245–48 |doi=10.2307/20722616 |jstor=20722616 |s2cid=254485477 }}</ref>

== Tolkien scholarship ==

Chance is a leading [[Tolkien research|Tolkien scholar]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tolkien-criticism-today/ |title=Tolkien Criticism Today |author=Norbert Schürer |journal=[[Los Angeles Review of Books]] |date=November 13, 2015 }}</ref> Her books in this field include ''[[Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythology for England']] '' (1979; revised edition 2001),<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythology for England' '' by Jane Chance Nitzsche |author=Edward R. Haymes |journal=The South Central Bulletin |volume=40 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1980 |pages=23–24 |doi=10.2307/3187842 |jstor=3187842 }}</ref> ''The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power'' (1992; revised edition 2001), in which she uses the theoretical framework of [[Michel Foucault]],<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power'' by Jane Chance |author=Robert Boenig |journal=South Central Review |volume=10 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1993 |pages=102–03 |doi=10.2307/3190291 |jstor=3190291 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Revised Editions of Tolkien Scholarship |author=Daniel J. Smitherman |journal=Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature |volume=57 |issue=1 |year=2003 |pages=109–11 |doi=10.2307/1348047 |jstor=1348047 |s2cid=162473169 }}</ref> ''[[Tolkien and the Invention of Myth]]: A Reader'' (2004),<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader'' by Jane Chance |author=Anthony B. Buccitelli |journal=Western Folklore |volume=65 |issue=3 |date=Summer 2006 |pages=343–345 |jstor=25474798 }}</ref> and ''Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature"'' (2016), a biography with literary analysis.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781137398956 |title=''Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature"'' |work=SpringerLink |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan }}</ref> Her book, ''Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythology for England''' (1979; revised edition 2001) is considered to be one of the first scholarly studies of Tolkien's works. Through looking at Middle Earth in a new way with a Medieval lens, she adds a whole new world to the study of the works of Tolkien. <ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Jane Chance {{!}} Rice University - Academia.edu |url=https://rice.academia.edu/JaneChance/CurriculumVitae |access-date=2024-11-02 |website=rice.academia.edu}}</ref> She appeared in a 2001 episode of ''National Geographic'', "Beyond the Movie:''The Lord of the Rings''" and another interview she did with ''National Geographic'' ended up in the Collector's DVD Edition of Peter Jackson's [[The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring]]. <ref name=":1" />

== Honors and distinctions ==

Chance was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] in 1980<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/jane-chance/ |title=Jane Chance |publisher=[[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation]] |access-date=December 16, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220194542/http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/jane-chance/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> and has also received membership in the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] in Princeton, New Jersey.<ref name=Purdue/> In 1998 she won the IMAPCT Award for Outstanding Rice Faculty Women from Rice University. <ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Jane Chance- Medievalist Most Published Professor in Rice University Humanities |url=https://arruf.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs3686/files/inline-files/ARRUF%20-%20Jane%20Chance%20Rev2.pdf |access-date=October 20, 2024}}</ref>

She received numerous fellowships throughout the years for her research on Medieval Mythography. A few of the fellowships she received were the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the late 1970s, a Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio in Lake Como, Italy in 1988, a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh in the late 1980s, and a Eccles Research Fellow position at the University of Utah in the mid 1990s. <ref name=":1" />

She won [[Modern Language Association of America|SCMLA]] Best Book awards for both the ''Medieval Mythography'' series and ''The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women''.<ref name=Women/>

In 2013 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from Purdue University<ref name=English/><ref name=Women/><ref name=Purdue/> and honored in a symposium at the [[International Congress on Medieval Studies]] organized by the Medieval Foremothers' Society.<ref name=Purdue/>

== Filmography ==

{| class="wikitable" ! Year<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jane Chance {{!}} Rice University - Academia.edu |url=https://rice.academia.edu/JaneChance/CurriculumVitae | access-date=2024-11-02 |website=rice.academia.edu}}</ref> ! Title ! Role ! Notes |- | 2002 | ''National Geographic: Beyond the Movie, "The Lord of the Rings"'' | Herself | National Geographic TV DVD<br/>Directed by Lisa Kors |- | 2005 | ''Ringers: Lord of the Fans'' | Herself | SONY Pictures DVD<br/>Directed by Carlene Cordova |}

== References ==

== External links ==

* [http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~jchance/ Personal page] at Rice University

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chance, Jane}} [[Category:1945 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Rice University faculty]] [[Category:Academic staff of the University of Saskatchewan]] [[Category:American medievalists]] [[Category:American women medievalists]] [[Category:Anglo-Saxon studies scholars]] [[Category:American gender studies academics]] [[Category:Purdue University alumni]] [[Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni]] [[Category:Tolkien scholars]]