Role
Dr Carter teaches predominantly in Renaissance and early modern literature. She is module leader for Early Modern Poetry and Prose (Level 3) and Shakespeare and Co. (Level 2). She is also the module leader for The Book Group module (Level 1) and Ways of Reading (Level 1). Dr Carter supervises dissertations on early modern topics, as well as projects on gender, sexuality, and folklore.
Career overview
Dr Carter previously taught early modern literature at:
- The University of Sheffield
- The University of Hull
- The University of Leicester
- The University of Loughborough
After her PhD, Dr Carter was the Royal Shakespeare Company Research Fellow, working on the RSC Complete Works project.
Research areas
Dr Carter's research interests include:
- The reception of Ovid in the early modern period
- Classical mythology
- Gender and sexuality
- Intertextuality
- Folklore
- Medical history and obstetrics
Dr Carter recently completed a Leverhulme Research Fellowship researching the representation of twins in the early modern period via classical, medical, and theatrical depictions. The resulting monograph was published in August 2026.
As a result of her earlier research on the intertextual use of classical mythology, Dr Carter's previous research project explored the application of structuralist and post-structuralist theories of intertextuality to early modern literature’s use of classical narratives and folklore and argued that this approach is crucial to understanding early modern texts and the contexts of their production. This research produced two journal articles and led to her recently published monograph, Early Modern Intertextuality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
Dr Carter’s earlier research involved the exploration of the reception of Ovid in the period and gender theory, which resulted in several articles and a monograph, Ovidian Myth and Sexual Deviance in Early Modern English Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). This book analyses the cultural presence of particular myths involving ideologically deviant sexual behaviour, including sexual violence, homosexuality, hermaphroditism and incest, and explores how classical mythology facilitated an engagement with and reproduction of such behaviours in the literature of the period.
Recent pedagogical research comprised a project assessing dyslexic university students' engagement with Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) (via a TILT Scholarship).
Opportunities to carry out postgraduate research towards an MPhil / PhD exist, and further information may be obtained from the NTU Graduate School.
External activity
Dr Carter is a Reader for a variety of journals, including Early Modern Literary Studies
Publications
Monographs
- Twins and Duality in Early Modern Representation, Carter S, 2026, Abingdon, Routledge
- Early Modern Intertextuality, Carter S, 2021, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan
- Ovidian Myth and Sexual Deviance in Early Modern English Literature. Carter S, Ovidian, 2011, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
Articles / Chapters
- ‘Early modern intertextuality: classical myth, narrative systems, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Carter S, Literature Compass, 2016, 13 (2), 47-57
- '“With kissing him I should have killed him first;” Death in Ovid and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis'. Carter S, Early Modern Literary Studies, Special Issue 24: Readings of Love and Death, 2015
- '“Not [...] perfect boy nor perfect wench”: Ovid's Hermaphroditus and the Early Modern Hermaphrodite'. Carter S in (eds) Kennedy D and Hardwick P, The Survival of Myth: Innovation, Singularity and Alterity, 2010, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- 'Titus Andronicus and Myths of Maternal Revenge'. Carter S, Cahiers Élisabéthains, 2010, 77
- 'From the ridiculous to the sublime: Ovidian and Neoplatonic registers in A Midsummer Night's Dream' Carter S, EMLS, 2006, 12 (1)
Educational / Reference Materials
- ‘Adonis’, ‘Venus and Adonis’, 'Tereus'. Carter S, entry in (ed) Peyré Y, A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology (www.shakmyth.org), 2013
Press expertise
Dr Carter can comment on Shakespeare, the early modern period, Ovid in the Renaissance, witchcraft, and gender and sexuality.