Scholarship
Over the course of my academic career, I have focused on the legends of women saints and the impact of hagiography on medieval society, including the use and depictions of torture in medieval literature. My current book project challenges modern misconceptions about torture and brutality through detailed literary and cultural analysis, and that explains the implications of this analysis in understanding medieval literature and culture. My conference papers range from the study of torture to the history and provenance of Middle English English manuscripts; from gender and transgression in the Old French fabliaux to rethinking religious syncretism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I have published articles in Traditio, Arthuriana, Florilegium, and the Journal of the Early Book Society.
Publications
Books
Women of the Gilte Legende : A Selection of Middle English Saints’ Lives. The Library of Medieval Women, (London: D.S. Brewer, 2003).
Articles
“The Middle English Life of Saint Dorothy in Trinity College, Dublin MS 319: Origins, parallels, and its relationship to Osbern Bokenham’s Legendys of Hooly Wummen,” Traditio, 62: 259–284(2007).
“A Knight of God or the Goddess?: Rethinking Religious Syncretism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Arthuriana, 17.3: 31–55 (Fall 2007).
“The Comic Uses of Torture in the Fabliaux: When Comedy Crosses the Line,” Comic Provocations: Exposing the Corpous of Old French Fabliaux. Forthcoming
“Torture Narratives: The Imposition of Medieval Method on Early Christian Texts,” Journal of the Early Book Society VII (New York: Pace University Press, 2004).
“British Library MS Harley 630: John Lydgate and St Albans,” Journal of the Early Book Society III (New York: Pace University Press, 2000).
Reviews
Minnis,Alastair. Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardoner and Wife of Bath. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, 510 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, forthcoming.
Herron, Thomas and Michael Potterton, eds. Ireland in the Renaissance c. 1540–1660. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2007, 384 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, forthcoming.
Williamson, Arthur H. Apocalypse Then: Prophecy & the Making of the Modern World. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008. 353 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, forthcoming.
“Sagas, Saints, and Settlements”, edited by Gareth Williams and Paul Bibire. Leiden: Brill. 2004. 158 pages. For The Sixteenth Century Journal, forthcoming.
MacCotter, Paul. Medieval Ireland: Territorial, Political and Economic Divisions. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008, 320 pages. Oenach Reviews 1.1 (2009), the Journal of the Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland (FMRSI), http://oenach.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/oenach-reviews-11/.
Valante, Mary A. The Vikings in Ireland: Settlement, Trade and Urbanization. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008, 216 pages. Oenach Reviews 1.1 (2009), the Journal of the Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland (FMRSI), http://oenach.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/oenach-reviews-11/.
Cheney, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004. 301 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Fall 2009).
Freeman, Thomas S. and Thomas F. Mayer, eds. Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400–1700. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. 2007. 239 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Winter 2008).
Winstead, Karen A. John Capgrave’s Fifiteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2007. 223 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Fall 2008).
Anderson, Thomas P. Performing Early Modern Trauma from Shakespeare to Milton. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited. 2006. 225 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring 2008).
LoPrete, Kimberly A. Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (c. 1067–1137). Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press. 2007. 663 pages. Eolas: Journal of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, Vol. 2 (2007).
Fulton, Helen, ed. Medieval Celtic Literature and Society. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press. 2005, 304 pages. Eolas: Journal of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, Vol. 2 (2007).
Owens, Margaret E. Stages of Dismemberment: The Fragmented Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Drama. Newark: University of Delaware Press. 2005. 332 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Volume 38, No. 1 (Spring 2007).
Williams, Deanne. The French Fetish From Chaucer to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 283 pages. The Sixteenth Century Journal, Volume 37, No. 4 (Winter 2006).
Williams, Gareth and Paul Bibire, eds. Sagas, Saints, and Settlements. Leiden: Brill, 2004,158 pages, for The Sixteenth Century Journal: The Journal of Early Modern Studies, Volume 37, No. 1 (Spring 2006).
Media Appearance and Professional Activity
Radio Interview: Guest scholar interviewed for the National Public Radio show With Good Reason, hosted by Sarah McConnell, and produced by the Virginia Foundation for Humanities, scheduled to broadcast Feb. 27, 2010.
Television Appearance: Guest scholar interviewed for the Discovery Channel/Pioneer Productions documentary on the Shroud of Turin, DaVinci Shroud, that aired April 6, 2009.
Television Appearance: Guest scholar interviewed for the National Geographic/Morning Star Production documentary Science of the Bible: The Knights Templar that aired February 22, 2006 and has aired repeatedly on the Discovery Channel, History Channel, and National Geographic Channel.
National Endowment for the Humanities Seminars and Institutes:
Participant: Selected for the National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Institute “Inquisitions and Persecutions in Early Modern Europe and the Americas” at the University of Maryland hosted by the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies (June13-July15, 2005).
Participant: Selected for the National Endowment for the Humanities Research Seminar “The Fabliaux and the Medieval Sense of the Comic” at Yale University directed by R. Howard Bloch (June 30–Aug. 8, 2003).
Conference Papers
“‘Hra†e seo†∂an wæs æfter mundgripe’: Anglo-Saxon Punishment and Middle English Torture” to be delivered at the annual International Medieval Conference, hosted by the University of Leeds, held in Leeds, England, July 2010.
“The Orthodoxy of Torture in Late Medieval Hagiography” delivered at the annual International Medieval Conference, hosted by the University of Leeds, held in Leeds, England, July 2009.
“‘Whoso list it nat yheere’: Teaching the Medieval Culture of Violence in American Universities,” delivered at the annual conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association hosted by Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, held in St. Louis, Missouri, October 2008.
“‘So he smote of hir hede by myssefortune’: The Real Price of the Beheading Game in SGGK and Malory,” delivered at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2008.
“‘Rending the Flesh’: Modern Misconceptions about Medieval Torture,” delivered at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2007.
“A ‘queynte’ Phrase: Sexual Euphemism, Satire, and Subversion in The Knight’s Tale and The Miller’s Tale” delivered at the annual conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association at The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, October 2006.
“Robing and Disrobing Gender: The Cross-dressing Culture of the Fabliaux,” delivered at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2005.
“A Knight of God or the Godess?: Rethinking Religious Syncretism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” delivered at the annual conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association at the college of Charleston, South Carolina, October 2004.
“The Legends of Anglo-Saxon Women Saints in Middle English Manuscripts: Transmission and Tradition,” delivered at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2003.
“The Progress of Cruelty: The Development of Torture in Medieval Literature,” invited paper delivered at the annual conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association at Florida State University, Talahassee, September 2002.
“Torture Narratives: The Imposition of Medieval Method upon Early Christian Texts” delivered at the biannual conference of the Early Book Society, University College Cork, Ireland, July 2001.
“TCD MS 319: A Version of Bokenham’s Life of Saint Dorothy or His Source?” delivered at the Early Books Society sponsored session of the International Medieval Conference at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2000.
“The Border Between Pleasure and Pain: The Forms and Frequency of Torture in Medieval Hagiography” delivered at the International Borderlines Conference, University College Dublin, March 2000.
“British Library MS Harley 630: John Lydgate and St Albans,” delivered at the biannual conference of the Early Book Society, Glasgow, Scotland, July 1999.
