Joe J. Diemer

I am a second-year PhD student co-enrolled in the Book History and Print Culture collaborative specialization. My research considers the complex and occasionally contradictory relationship between children, the ocean, and sea creatures in nineteenth-century literary and scientific discourse. More specifically, I am interested in the ways that the Victorian popularization of marine science and correspondent domestication of sea creatures through fads such as the aquarium and the specimen book were encouraged, hampered, or otherwise filtered through the period’s children’s literature.

Prior to arriving at UofT, I completed an honours BA and an MA at the University of Victoria, where my research engaged with constructions of time, ability, and religious experience in the work of Henry Cole and Margaret Gatty.

List of Publications 

• Diemer, J. “Marrying Christ: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Song of Songs in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.” The Arbutus Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 2022, pp. 44-56.

Conference papers:

• Diemer, Joe. “‘Aesthetics for Children’: Art, Religion, and Natural Taste in the Home Treasury 'Bible Events'.” VSAWC, 2024.
• Diemer, Joe. “Childish Critics and Critical Children: John Scott, ‘Literature of the Nursery,’ and the Cockney School Affair.” UofT BHPC Colloquium, 2025.