Professor of Medieval Literature
Specialization:
Medieval literature: Old English, Middle English, Old Norse/Icelandic, Old Irish, Chaucer; Hagiography; Bibliographic and Textual Criticism; Anglo-Saxon literature & lexicography; History of Nineteenth-Century Medieval scholarship, Manuscript and early book history
Education:
Ph.D., English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Certificate in Modern Icelandic
M.A., English, Western Washington University
B.A., French, Michigan State University
Professional and Administrative:
Reviewer: Old English Newsletter (History of the Discipline), 2006-2011
Faculty-Member-in-Residence, London, Fall 2004
Publicity:
Interview on The Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and Carrier Library's unique copy, with Sarah McConnell. With Good Reason, National Public Radio (Virginia). February 12, 2011.
Current Research:
Bodleian Library MS Eng. lang. e.11: An Anonymous(?) Seventeenth-Century Old English Glossary.” Article in progress.
The Post-Medieval Old English Glossaries in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: A Descriptive Census and Catalogue. Catalogue in progress.
Research Awards:
JMU, College of Arts & Letters Faculty Mini-Grant, Spring 2021
The Falconer Madan Prize & The Bibliographical Society (England) Fellowship, 2020 (postponed to 2022)
JMU, College of Arts and Letters Faculty Mini-Grant, Spring 2019
Bibliographical Society Minor Grant, Spring 2018
JMU, College of Arts & Letters Faculty Summer Research Grant, Summer 2015
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2013-2014
JMU, College of Arts & Letters Educational Leave, Spring 2012
Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award, College of Arts & Letters, Summer 2012
Cordell Research Fellow, Indiana State University Cordell Collection, Summer 2010
JMU, International Programs Faculty Development Grant, summer 2009 (Oxford); Summer 2011 (Leeds and Oxford)
JMU, College of Arts & Letters, CAL Faculty Incentive Grant, May 2009 (Oxford)
JMU, College of Arts & Letters, CAL Faculty Incentive Grant for the development of an interdisciplinary course, Manuscript and Print Culture in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Periods (with Mark Rankin), Summer 2008 [course taught Spring 2009]
The Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award, Dictionary Society of North American, summer 2007
JMU Faculty Educational Leave, Spring 2004
Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Spring 2004
The Falconer Madan Prize & The Bibliographical Society (England) Fellowship, 2004
The Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award, Dictionary Society of North America, 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Texts at The British Library, 2001
Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award, College of Arts and Letters, 1998, 2002, 2007
College of Arts and Letters Faculty Summer Research Grants, 2000, 2006
University of Illinois Dissertation Fellowships, 1994, 1995
Pauline Dillon Gragg Fellowships, 1994. 1995
University of Illinois International Dissertation Research Grant, 1993
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
Teaching Awards:
James Madison University:
Nominated for the Provost Graduate Advising Award, 2011
Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning: A Workshop for Faculty and Librarians, Carrier Library, Summer 2006
Outstanding Educator Commendations, Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity
College of Arts & Letters Faculty Enhancement Grant (with Mark Rankin), for the development of an upper-level English course: "Manuscript and Print Culture in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Eras," Spring 2008
University of Illinois:
Harriet and Charles Luckmann Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award
Liberal Arts and Sciences College Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching for Graduate Teaching Assistants
Leo B. Kneer Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for the Department of English
Publications:
The Making of Joseph Bosworth’s Old English Dictionary and the Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Philology, forthcoming from The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto.
"Benjamin Thorpe's Influence on Joseph Bosworth's 1838 'A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language,' Old English Tradition: Essays in Honor of J.R. Hall. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS (2021).
Review of Rebecca Brackmann, The Elizabethan Invention of Anglo-Saxon England: Laurence Nowell, William Lambarde, and the Study of Old English (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2012). In The Medieval Review (13.03.03, Spring 2013).
“Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.887: An Unpublished Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Glossary by Nathaniel Spinckes.” The Library: Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 13 (2012): 400-422.
“Teaching Medieval and Early Modern Manuscript and Print Culture in Theory and Practice” (with Mark Rankin), in “Teaching Book History,” special issue of Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 19.1 (Spring 2012): 75-91.
“Legendary Lexicography: Joseph Bosworth’s Hidden Debt to Henry J. Todd’s Edition of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language: Cunning passages, contrived Corridors: Unexpected Essays in the History of Lexicography”, Ed. Michael Adams, Milan: Polimetrica Press 2011. pp 25-55.
"Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library, A Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research," Winter/Spring 2008: 37.1 (http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371index.htmCEA Forum (with Melissa Van Vuuren).
“Memorials, Tributes, History of the Discipline, for 2009,” The Year’s Work in Old English Studies in Old English Newsletter: For 2004: 39.2 (2006): 9-14; for 2005: 40.2 (2007): 8-15; for 2006: 41.2 (2008); 10-23); for 2007 (forthcoming); for 2008 (in progress); for 2009: 43:1-2 (2011): 12-21.
“Teaching the Middle Ages through Travel in a Semester Residential Program,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 16.1 (2009): 39-70.
"Old English Dictionaries," Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. 2d ed. Ed. Keith Brown. Oxford: Elsevier, 2005.
Review of The Correspondence of Edward Lye. Ed. Margaret Clunies Ross and Amanda J. Collins. Publication of the Dictionary of Old English 6. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004. In Journal of English and Germanic Philology 106.3 (2007): 414-416.
“Anglo-Saxon Conversion Narratives: Research Problems and Pedagogical Oportunities,” Approaches to Current Scholarship and Teaching, ed. Paul Cavill. D.S. Brewer, 2004. 141-52.
"Secularizing the Word: Conversion Models in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer Review 37 (2003): 196-218.
"T. Northcote Toller and the Making of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Supplement," Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures. Ed. Donald Scragg. D.S. Brewer, 2003. 301-21.
“Reconciling Family and Faith: Ælfric's Lives of Saints and Domestic Dramas of Conversion,” Via Crucis: Essays on Early Medieval Sources and Ideas in Memory of J. E. Cross, eds. Thomas N. Hall, Thomas D. Hill, and Charles D. Wright. Medieval European Studies I. West Virginia University Press, 2002. 138-57.
Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-Ambrose and Ambrosiaster. Old English Newsletter, [Monograph] Subsidia 25. Kalamazoo, MI: The Medieval Institute for the Modern Language Association of America, 1997 (with Jessica Wegmann and Charles D. Wright).
"Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-Ambrose and Ambrosiaster." http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/ambrose. (created by William Schipper and Larry Swain).
“Ambrose in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture,” Old English Newsletter 27:1 (1993): 30-4 (with Jessica Wegmann).
“Ambrose” (with Jessica Wegmann and Charles D. Wright), “Coelestinus I” and “Capreolus of Carthage,” forthcoming in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, eds. Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, and Paul E. Szarmach. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications.
Presentations:
Panelist, “Source Studies and Undergraduate Research,” International Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2021.
"Bodleian Library MS Add. C.250 as Case Study: Thomas Allen, Brian Twyne, Richard James, and Robert Cotton -- Buried Connections, Entangled Lives, and Manuscript Networks,” International Society of Anglo-Saxonists Biennial Conference, Center for Medieval Studies, Albuquerque, NM, August 2019.
"The Anglo-Saxon Glossary of Richard D'Ewes," Personalization in Manuscripts and Printed Books, Early Book Society, 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2018.
Co-organizer (with Paul Battles) of two sessions in honor of Charles D. Wright, Sponsored by University of Illinois Medieval Studies, (1) Old English Poetry (2) Old English Prose, International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2018.
Panelist, “Dear Hiring Committee, I can Teach it All: Workshop for Graduate Students (and others) on the Job Market. Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, October 6-8, 2016.
“Chaucer’s Problem Poem: The ‘inexplicable,’ ‘rambling,’ ‘tedious,’ ‘puzzling’ House of Fame,” New Chaucer Society Conference, London, July 2016.
“Forgetting Bosworth-Toller, One Letter at a Time,” Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, October 2015.
"GOD and MAN in Old English: Lexical Construction of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian Cultural Past," The Fourth International Symposium on Approaches to English Historical Lexicography and Lexicology (OX-LEX4), Pembroke College, Oxford University, March 25-27, 2015.
“Is it a sword, a temple-curtain, or a veil? Teaching Chaucer through Footnotes,” Roundtable on Teaching Chaucer, Medieval Association of the Midwest Session, 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2012.
“R.T. Hampson’s ‘Lost’ Transcript of Cotton Tiberius B.i,” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, July 2011.
“Bosworth’s Ladies: The Influence of Women on A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language.” Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, November 2010, Roanoke, VA.
“Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.887: An Unpublished Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Glossary by Nathaniel Spinckes,” Center for Medieval Studies, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Early Medievalisms 1600-1800 session, The 45th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2010.
“[S]omething like Mair’s Tyro’s Dictionary, with an Index”: Planning A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, XVIIth Biennial Meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America, Indiana University, Bloomington, May 2009 [solicited].
“Channel Crossings: Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language in the Netherlands, 1829-1840,” The Medieval Academy Session, 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 7-11, 2008.
“The Gentleman Philologist and Lexical Nationalism: The Making of Joseph Bosworth’s 1838 A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language.” Bibliographical Society Lecture Series. University College London. December, 2006.
“Benjamin Thorpe’s Influence on Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language.” Southeastern Medieval Association Conference. University of Mississippi, October 2006.
“On Compiling A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language: Methodological Evidence For Crafting of Entries from the Bodlelain Library Manuscripts,” 41st International Medieval Studies, Western Michigan Universith, May 2006 (Early Book Society Sponsored Session).
“Bosworth’s Books: Evidence for the Compilation of Joseph Bosworth’s Edition of A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language from the Bodleian Library Bequest,” 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May, 2004.
“An Uncaged Treasure: The History, Travels, and Provenance of The Carrier Library Copy of The Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,” Carrier Library, James Madison University, November 15, 2001.
“Strange Bedfellows: Thomas Northcote Toller, Joseph Bosworth, John Dee, and the Making of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Supplement,” The British Library, London, August 2001.
“Anglo-Saxon Conversion Narratives: Research Problems and Pedagogical Opportunities,” The Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England: Issues in Teaching and Research, The University of Glamorgan: Christianity and the Humanities Project, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, January 2001.
“Secularizing the Word: Conversion and Gender in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,” Sewanee Mediaeval Colloquium: Celebrating Chaucer in 2000: His World, His Work, His Legacy, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, March 2000. Respondent: R.A. Shoaf.
“Women's Experience of Conversion in Old Norse Literature,” Modern Language Association Convention, Toronto, December 1997.
“The Conversion Stories in Ælfric's Lives of Saints,” Symposium on Irish and Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture in Honor of J. E. Cross, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 1996.
“Beowulf, The Celts and the Critics,” Modern Language Association Convention, Chicago, December 1995.
