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• 1 2023-06-16T08:23:02-07:00 About the Author 12 plain 2026-07-02T08:33:18-07:00
  

  OVERVIEW:

  Alisa Clapp-Itnyre received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1996. She is Professor of English at Indiana University East, Richmond, Indiana where she has taught since 1999, teaching courses such as Children's Literature, Young-Adult Literature, and Victorian literature, among others. There, she helped establish the first Honors Program in 2005 and was its third Director, 2010-18.
  
  Her scholarship explores interdisciplinary music-literature connections in Victorian culture, as well as childhood culture and children's music of the 19th century. She is author of Angelic Airs, Subversive Songs: Music as Social Discourse in the Victorian Novel (Ohio UP, 2002), British Hymn Books for Children (2016), and is co-editor, with Julie Melnyk, of "Perplext by Faith:" Essays on Victorian Beliefs and Doubts (Cambridge Scholars, 2015).  She has published almost 30 articles in edited books or journals such as Victorian Poetry, Victorian Literature and Culture, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Children’s Literature and Education, and Brontë Studies. 
  
  Clapp-Itnyre's second monograph, British Hymn Books for Children, 1800-1900: Re-Tuning the History of Childhood was published in 2016 for Ashgate’s Studies in Childhood Series: 1700-Present series.  The research from it informs this website and the children's hymns studied in this book are featured here. 
  
  Her current project is an exploration of children’s diaries of the Victorian and Edwardian English-speaking world, based on research of 100+ children's diaries from major archives in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
  
  Clapp-Itnyre has directed eight plays with Richmond Civic Theatre's Stage One Youth Theatre, and run four children's-choir camps heard here.  She has also served on the Board of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, serves on the Richmond Shakespeare Festival Board, the Wayne County Historical Museum, and on the Administrative Council of Central United Methodist Church, Richmond, IN.  She has served as secretary, treasurer, and/or board member of the Midwest Victorian Studies Association for 14 years.
  
  In 2024, she formed the Community Choristers, the first-ever children's choir of Richmond, Indiana.  Over 75 children have sung in 5 choir-cycles in it since then. Their voices can be heard on this website. 

  PUBLICATIONS:

  Clapp-Itnyre's publications or guest appearance related to children's hymns, Bands of Mercy, and Christmas carols, include:
  
  Invited Documentary Appearance
  Segment on “Bands of Mercy songs” in Taking Note: The Animal Rights Music Documentary. Chris Hines, director.  UK.  Forthcoming 2024. See website here.
  
  Interview/Citation in the New York Times
  On my research on the Christmas Carol: "Why You Love (or Love to Hate) Christmas Music" by NYT Writer, Derrick Taylor, Nov. 24, 2023. at Christmas music.
  
  Invited Podcast
  Singing from the Margins: Bands of Mercy, Vanessa Warne, interviewer, hosted by the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada. 2020. https://www.craftingcommunities.net/s1e4-singing-from-the-margins
  
  Invited Reference Essays
  Invited entry, “Fanny Crosby and Grover Cleveland” for What the Presidents Read. Ed. Elizabeth Goodenough and Marilynn S. Olson.  Rowman and Littlefield, 2025. Pp. 261-4.
  
  Invited entry, “Children’s Hymns.”  Palgrave’s Major Works Series: Encyclopedia of Victorian Women Writers.  Ed. Lesa Scholl.  Published online 2020. See Children's Hymns
  
  Invited Chapter on “Hymns and Songs, 1700-1830” for Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of  Children's Literature in English.  Ed. Zoe Jaques and Eugene Giddens.  Forthcoming.
  
  Invited Plenary Speaker
  “How He Called Little Children as Lambs to His Fold:” The Legacy of Victorian Children’s Hymnody in 20^th- and 21^st-Century America’s Hymn-Singing, Hymnal Publication, and Music Education for Children.  For the Christian Congregational Music 2023 Conference: Local and Global Perspectives.  Ripon College, Cuddeston UK.  1 August 2023.
  
  Victorian Literature Articles (most recent first)
  “The Legacy of Victorian Hymnody in Children’s British and American Hymnbooks, 1840-1940.” Chapter 9 for Interdisciplinary Essays on Victorian Music and Class: Recovering Lost Chords. Volume under contract with Clemson University Press, April 2026.
  
  “From Factory Children to Cinderellas: Songs for Children of Labour, 1830-1900.” Special Double Issue in Honor of Florence S. Boos. Philological Quarterly 104. 3–4 (2025): pp. 369-394.
  
  “Bands of Mercy: Merciful Hymnody for Child and Beast.” The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song.  Published Feb. 2025.
  
  Invited Chapter, “Bands of Mercy Music: A Cultural Study of Victorian Animal Welfare Songs for Children.” Reading Texts in Music and Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century.  Edited by Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis.  Undergraduate & Graduate textbook for Springer Publishing. Published June 2025. Pp. 40-55.
  
  Invited Chapter, “‘Hymns that Have Helped:’ Hymnody as Lived Verse for the Victorian Public.” for Victorian Verse: The Prosody of Everyday Life.  Ed. Lee Behlman and Olivia Moy.  Palgrave, 2023. Pp. 253-78. See abstract
  
  “Thy love to me impart:” The Literary-Theological Legacy of Hymns in Patrick and Anne Brontë’s Father-Daughter Relationship.  Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature. Anne Brontë Bicentennial Special Issue. Eds. Deborah Denenholz Morse and Amber Pouliot. No. 138 (Winter 2020). Pp. 181-199. Available at Project Muse, View abstract here.
  
  “Editorial Choices and Lived Religion: The Reverend Mr Patrick Brontë’s Sunday School Hymn Book and Hymn Sheets for Haworth Children, 1827-1835.”  Brontë Studies, vol. 45, no. 4, 2020, pp. 309-322. View abstract here.  
  
  “Advocating for the Least of These: Empowering Children and Animals in The Band of Mercy Advocate.” Chapter 5 in Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture.  Ed. Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier.  NY and London: Routledge, 2019. Pp. 87-105.
  
  “Children’s Hymn Singing in Victorian Culture and Scholarship.”  Literature Compass. Wiley Online, 2018.  See online paper here.  
   “O, Come, All Ye Children: Christmas Carols in Victorian Children’s Hymnbooks.” The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song. 68. 1 (Winter 2017). Pp16-23. https://thehymnsociety.org/
  
  “Community in Children’s Hymn-Singing.”  Victorian Review.  41. 2 (Spring 2015).  Pp. 26-31. Available at Project Muse: view abstract here.