Work in Progress
Book Projects
Book Project: I have submitted a complete draft of my manuscript to publishers D.S. Brewer, England and am currently revising it as per their reader comments. This book project is a comprehensive study of torture in medieval literature – its uses and purpose in popular narratives, both religious and secular, and how its appearance or absence is a reflection of medieval culture. Working title: Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature and Culture.
Thesis of Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature and Culture:
The purpose of my book project is to compare the episodes of torture in religious literature, its use as Church propaganda and its political presence, to the absence or subversion of torture in secular literature, especially when torture is used to challenge abuse of power and tyranny. In these cases, the presence of torture criticizes those who use it illegitimately or dishonorably in contravention of accepted public practice and law, suggesting that torture had a specific place in medieval society delineated by strict boundaries and rules for application and that medieval audiences were no more desensitized to its use and abuse than modern audiences. The body in pain and its representation in art, literature and historical record have created a modern impression of the Middle Ages as barbaric, bloodthirsty and consumed with cruel desire. Many people, scholars and non-academics alike, have formed their image of the medieval period based on a foundational belief that violence was a common and enjoyable spectacle and that torture was a pervasive part of medieval life. This book offers a revisionist argument, challenging preconceived ideas about the prevalence of torture and brutality in medieval society and arguing that representations of torture and brutality in literature are not mimetic. Instead, literary depictions of torture and brutality represent satire, critique and dissent; and representations of torture and brutality in literary texts have didactic and political functions.
Book Project: I am co-editing a volume on literary beheading motifs with Jeff Massey from Malloy College, based on our session “Heads will Roll: Decapitation Motifs in Medieval Literature” at the 2008 International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, Michigan. The volume is a collection of fourteen essays covering all aspects of decollation in medieval and early modern texts from the Old English Judith to MacBeth and modern popular culture, including my essay “‘So he smote of hir hede by myssefortune’: The Real Price of the Beheading Game in SGGK and Malory.” Our proposal is currently under consideration by the University Press of Florida.
Research Goals
Research Goals: (2009–2010) I viewed four rare manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, King’s College Library, Corpus Christi Library, and the Pepys Library in Cambridge to further my research on the South English Lengedary, Havelok the Dane, King Horn and William of Palerne found in Oxford, Bodleian MS Laud Miscellaneous 108, and King’s College, Cambridge MS 13. I conducted this research, thanks to a grant from the office of Graduate Studies in July 2009, and will be applying for further funding to continue my work on the relationships between these manuscripts, based on codicology and rubrication.
All of this is part of my book-length project on torture and brutality in medieval literature, in which I examine the episodes of violence in the South English Legendary, Havelok the Dane and William of Palerne (which is in the King’s College MS), as well as other medieval texts, and the particularly high incidents of violence in English adaptations of French narratives.
Research Goals: I am conducting manuscript research on the recently discovered Abbotsford Library MS of Osbern Bokenham’s Middle English translation of the Legenda aurea in Edinburgh, Scotland from microfilm provided by the faculty of Advocates and funded by an Arts and Sciences grant from the Dean’s Fund for Scholarship Excellence (2008). The microfilm will allow me to further my work on Bokenham’s version of St. Dorothy, and John Capgrave’s poem on the same subject.
Courses:
