Teaching Assistant Professor and Academic Integrity Director
English
I am fascinated by the long view of English literature, approaching antique and medieval literature as the beginning of an enduring (if rocky) trajectory of Anglophone literary endeavor that is culturally, socially, and historically inseparable from the study of later periods.
More specifically, my research focuses on the intersection of religious worldviews and verbal art, with particular attention given to the exegetical and contemplative aspects of monastic culture in Old and Middle English poetry. In this vein, my first book makes available for the first time in Modern English St. Æthelwold of Winchester's tenth-century Old English Rule of St. Benedict (Cistercian Publications, 2017). I have turned my hand increasingly toward additional editing and translation work, with the aim of making relatively arcane texts from the Benedictine world from the early medieval to the modern eras more available to contemporary audiences. This includes an edition and translation of two fourteenth-century Latin treatises for Benedictine novices at Lydgate’s monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, the first translation of the collected French poems of the Benedictine monk Swami Abhishiktananda, a translation and commentary on "The Old English Advent Lyrics," an edition of the poems and shorter prose of Dame Gertrude More (with another project editing her longer prose meditations), and a book-length collection of Benedictine prayers from over a thousand years.
As a teacher and publishing poet, my interests broaden to include especially the mutual influence of literature and social realities upon one another throughout history, the history of poetics, media ecology, and our relationships as natural creatures with the earth and other species.
I also head up a medieval English reading group for interested students at Marquette that meets weekly throughout the year (please feel free to email me if you would like more information).
Courses Taught
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Honors First Year Seminar: Claiming Our Attention
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Honors First Year Seminar: Humans and Other Natural Phenomena
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Epic
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Critical Practices and Processes in Literary Studies
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Foundations in Rhetoric
Research Interests
- Old English Language and Literature
- Middle English Language and Literature
- Poetics
- Monastic Culture
Publications
Additional Information
Office Hours
Spring 2023
- Mon 1:00-2:00
- Wed 10:00-12:00
Teaching Schedule
Spring 2023
- 1929/102 TuTh 11:00-11:50 Marquette Hall 200
- 3000/101 TuTh 12:30-1:45 O'Brien Hall 226B
- Introduction to Literary Studies