Professor of Medieval French Literature, Women's and Gender Studies, Comparative Literature, and Director at the Institute for the Humanities
She/Her/Hers
About
My teaching and research interests are, broadly defined, in the intersections of medieval literature, history, and theory. My most recent book is the forthcoming (Spring 2017) In the Skin of a Beast: Sovereignty and Animality in Medieval France. In earlier projects I have explored the intersections of medieval theories and practices of queenship with romances about adulterous queens, and the ways in which gendered cultural values are mapped onto representations of blood. I have also collaborated with colleagues to write books on Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France. My most recent books focus on Barlaam and Josaphat, a widely circulating medieval saint's life based on the life of the Buddha, and I am currently at work on Ovidian Ecologies, a study of medieval translations of stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Recent and Selected Publications
In the Skin of a Beast: Sovereignty and Animality in Medieval France (forthcoming in 2017 from the University of Chicago Press).
Co-author, with Donald S. Lopez, Jr., In Search of the Christian Buddha: How an Asian Sage Became a Christian Saint (NY: Norton, 2014).
Translator, Gui de Cambrai, Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha(NY: Penguin Classics, 2014).
Co-editor, with E. Jane Burns, From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013).
“Skin and Sovereignty in Guillaume de Palerne,” Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistiques 24 (2012): 361-75.
Co-author, with Sharon Kinoshita, Marie de France: A Critical Companion (Boydell and Brewer, 2012).
Recent graduate seminars taught:
Gender and Sexuality and Medieval France
Feminism, the Humanities, and Posthumanism
Sovereignty, Animality, and Intimacy in Medieval French Literature
Animal, Human, Woman: Medieval, Early Modern, Postmodern (co-taught with Professor Valerie Traub)
Approaches to Feminist Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences (co-taught with Professor Robert Wyrod)
Recent undergraduate courses taught:
The Natural and the Supernatural in Medieval France
Varieties of Translation in Medieval France
France and the Crusades
Introduction to Medieval Literature
Research Areas(s)
- Medieval French Literature, Medieval Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Women's Studies
Affiliation(s)
- Comparative Literature, Romance Languages & Literatures and Women Studies
