ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
Assistant Professor of Medieval Literature and Culture, Department of English (Cross-Appointed, Gender and Women’s Studies Program), Birmingham-Southern College, 2018–Present
Fellow and Instructor, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Department of English, Duke University, 2017–2018
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English Literature, Duke University, 2017
Dissertation: In Search of Pity: Chaucerian Poetics and the Suffering of Others
B.A., English, Latin, Sewanee: The University of the South, 2010
Summa Cum Laude, Honors in English, Gender and Women’s Studies Minor
PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
Forms of Suffering: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Chaucerian Pity, manuscript under review.
Articles and Book Chapters
“What Everyone Knows: Hermeneutical Injustice in the Medieval Iphis,” Believing Ancient Women: Feminist Epistemologies, eds. Megan Bowen, Mary Hamil Gilbert, and E. G. Nally, University of Edinburgh Press, Summer 2023.
“‘The pitous pite deserveth’: Justice, Violence, and Pity in the Prioress’s Tale and ‘The Jew and the Pagan’,” Exemplaria 34.2, July 2022.
“Forming Pity: Responses to Suffering in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,” Religion & Literature 53.3, Spring 2022.
“Passionate Language: Models of Compassion and the Language of Orthodoxy in Nicholas Love and Margery Kempe,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 49.2 (May 2019): 265-94.
“Conceiving Community: Familial Trinitarian Metaphors in Augustine, William Langland, and Julian of Norwich,” New Directions in Medieval Mystical and Devotional Literature: Essays in Honor of Denise N. Baker, eds. Amy N. Vines and Lee Templeton, Lehigh University Press, forthcoming.
Selected Essays and Short pieces
Monthly Essayist for Ploughshares, selected essays include:
“Breaking Down ‘Medieval’ Violence,” Ploughshares, August 2022.
“Zadie Smith’s Wife of Willesden,” Ploughshares, April 2022.
“The Insomnia of Medieval Literature,” Ploughshares, February 2022.
“A Trick of the Light,” Ploughshares, January 2022.
“Literary Silence in the Time of Pandemic,” Ploughshares, June 2020.
“Visualizing Suffering: Undergraduate Big Data and Humanities Research on Affect and Politics,” co- authored with Astrid Giugni. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, Spring 2020 ( 24.2).
“Why Game of Thrones and Fantasy Literature Gets Medieval,” Interview with Duke Today. May 2019.
Book Reviews
Jennifer Garrison, Challenging Communion: The Eucharist and Middle English Literature. Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture. (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017). Yearbook of Langland Studies, Volume 32 (2018): 442-45.
Articles in Progress
“Bats’ Eyes and Bloody Butchers: Need, Nature, and Dominion in Robert Henryson’s The Preaching of the Swallow,” manuscript completed and under preparation for submission.
“William Crashaw’s Profit: A Computational Approach to the History of Global Monopolies,” co-written with Astrid Giugni, manuscript under preparation for submission.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES PROJECTS
2019-Present Ethical Consumption Before Capitalism sponsored by Bass Connections Grants, Duke University’s Rhodes Information Sciences Initiative, and Birmingham-Southern College’s Vail Program, co-project lead Astrid Giugni. Analyzes the Early English Books Online database. Uses Natural Language Processing approaches based in the programming language R (including topic modelling and Named Entity Recognition) to track the changing language of consumer culture with the rise of global trade monopolies in the Early Modern period. Featured as part of the Folger Seminar at North Carolina State’s “Out of the Archives” exhibit.
2017 Visualizing Suffering: Tracking Photojournalism and the Syrian Refugee Crisis, sponsored by Duke University’s DATA+ program, co-project lead with Astrid Giugni. Examines the language & images of compassion in major news outlets with sentiment analysis.
AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
International & National
2020-2023 Duke University Data+ Computational Humanities Project Grant
2021 Associated Colleges of the South Teaching & Learning Workshop Fellow
2019-2020 Mayers Fellow, The Huntington Library (2-month award)
2018 Donald Howard Travel Scholarship, New Chaucer Society
2016, 2017 Conversions Grant, Early Modern Conversions Project, McGill University
Birmingham-Southern College
2022 Summer Research Grant
2022 Spectrum Queer Student Union GK Armstrong Award (student-nominated award)
2020 Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Classroom (student-nominated award)
2020 Krulak Institute, Summer Research Grant
Duke University
2016–2017 John Lievsay Fellowship, Department of English, Duke University
2015–2016 Julian Price Dissertation Fellowship, Duke University
2015 Davidson Family Summer Research Fellowship, Duke University
2011–2012 Seed Grant, Franklin Humanities Institute Digital Scholarship Initiative
INVITED TALKS
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Satirizing Chivalry,” The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Premodern Film Series, Spring 2020.
“Undergraduate Big Data and Humanities Research,” Franklin Humanities Institute and the Digital Humanities Initiative, Duke University, Durham, NC, Spring 2019.
“Dissecting Women: The Role of Gender in Early Anatomical Research,” The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, Spring 2019.
“Digital Pedagogy Roundtable,” Representing Migration Humanities Lab, Duke University, Durham, NC, Fall 2018.
“Chaucer and the Construction of English Identity: Printing Chaucer in the Early Modern Period,” Conversions: Medieval and Modern Seminar, Duke University, Durham, NC, Spring 2017.
“The Politics of Compassion in Nicholas Love and Margery Kempe,” Triangle Medieval Studies Seminar, Durham, NC, Fall 2016.
“How to Respond to Suffering: Pity and Ethics in Chaucer,” Meredith College, Raleigh, NC, Spring 2016.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
“Profiting from the Middle Ages: William Crashaw and Merchant Virtues, a Computational Approach,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, Sewanee, TN, Spring 2023.
“Reading Pity After Chaucer,” New Chaucer Society, Durham, UK, Summer 2020 (postponed 2022).
“Bird Wisdom: Gender, Nature, and Labor in the Renaissance Robert Henryson,” Renaissance Society of America, Dublin, Ireland, Spring 2022.
“Ethical Consumption Before Capitalism,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, Spring 2022.
“Reading Pity After Chaucer,” New Chaucer Society, Durham, UK, Summer 2020 (postponed).
“Medieval Queer Literature and the Archive in General Education Courses,” Pedagogy and the Premodern: A Symposium, Durham, NC, Spring 2020.
“‘Al was conscience and tendre herte’: Pitee, Race, and the Child in the Prioress’s Tale,” South Eastern Medieval Association, Greensboro, NC, Fall 2019.
“Conceiving Community: Familial models of the Trinity in Langland and the Late Medieval Pastoral Tradition,” International Piers Plowman Society Conference, Miami, FL, Spring 2019.
“‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?” A Collaborative Digital Pedagogy Experiment in Medieval and Renaissance texts to STEM students,” South Central Renaissance Conference, Lubbock, TX, Spring 2019. co-presented with Astrid Giugni, Duke University
“Knowing Suffering: Pity and the Gentle Heart in Late Medieval Literature,” New Chaucer Society Conference, Toronto, CA, Summer 2018.
“Identifying Suffering: Changing Models of Compassion and Identification in 15th-century England,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, Spring 2017.
“Chaucerian Compilations and the History of the Book,” Triangle Book History Symposium, National Humanities Center, Durham, NC, Spring 2017.
“Conceiving Community: Familial Trinitarian Metaphors in Augustine and Julian of Norwich,” South Eastern Medieval Association, Knoxville, TN, Fall 2016.
“Passionate Language,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, Spring 2016.
“Chaucerian Pity and an Ethics of Alterity,” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Durham, NC, Fall 2015.
“Bondswoman and Brewster: Labor in The Book of Margery Kempe,” ACMRS Interdisciplinary Conference in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Scottsdale, AZ, Spring 2015.
TEACHING
Birmingham-Southern College
ENG 102: Seminar in Critical Writing and Thinking
GWS 200: Introduction to Gender and Women Studies
ENG 235: Queer Archives and Digital History: Punks, Artists, and Revolutionaries
ENG 240: Literature, Technology, and New Media (History of the Book & Introduction to Digital Humanities)
ENG/HON 247: An Arthurian Primer
ENG 248/HON 248: Game(s) of Thrones: Medieval Literature and Popular Culture
ENG 250: Survey of British Literature: From Beowulf to Zadie Smith
EH/GRS/UES 268: Environmental Thought in Antiquity
ENG 299: Medieval Sex Ed: Sex, Gender, and Power in Medieval Literature
ENG 350/HON 350: Chaucer
ENG 351: Medieval British Literature
Duke University
WRITING 101: The Lives of Sinners and Saints
ENG 90: Tainted Love: Desire and Ethics from Plato to Morrison
ENG 290/MEDREN 290: Game(s) of Thrones: Medieval Literature and Popular Culture
ENG 333/MEDREN 333: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
STUDENT SUPERVISION
B.A. Thesis Directed (Birmingham-Southern College)
Thornton Muncher, “Dramatizing Fencing,” Honors Project, 2021
Isabella Alday, “Fin’amor as critique of Chivalry,” Honors Project, 2021
Emily Kate Hayes, “Julian of Norwich: the Woman, the Mystic, and the Theologian,” Honors Project, 2021
Sarah Anna McCarthy, “Realism in the Depiction of PTSD in The Hunger Games,” Honors Project 2020
Kathryn Petty, “Gender Perception in High Fantasy Video Games,” Honors Project, 2019
Grace Gresham, “‘Filth over-strewn with flowers’: Christianity and Paganism in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess,” B.A. English, 2019
Kendal Harris, “Black Lives Don’t Matter: Dismantling Double Consciousness in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give,” B.A. English, 2019
SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION
Fall 2022: Conference co-organizer and planning committee, Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, Birmingham
Spring 2022: Roundtable co-organizer, “Computational Methods in Medieval and Renaissance Digital Humanities,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI
Spring 2021: Session chair, Sewanee Medieval Colloquium
Fall 2019: Session chair, South Eastern Medieval Colloquium, “Gender, Literature, and Authority”
Spring 2018: Conference Organizer, “Digital Matters in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,” Durham, NC
Spring 2017: Session Organizer, “Conversions: Transformations in the Vices and Virtues in Late Medieval England,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI
Spring 2016: Session Co-organizer, “The Nature of Mysticism,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, Sewanee, TN
Spring 2012, 2014: Planning Committee, North Carolina Colloquium in Medieval and Renaissance Studies
INSTITUTIONAL AND DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE
Birmingham-Southern College
2019-present Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee; Chair (2020-21 & 2021-22)
2020-present Advisor, College Democrats
2019-present Advisor, Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society
2019-present Phi Beta Kappa, Membership Committee, Chair (2020-21 & 2021-22)
2021-2022 Appointments Committee, English Department Search, Co-Chair
2020- 2021 Appointments Committee, English Department Search
2019-2020 Appointments Committee, Library Director Search
2018-2019 Appointments Committee, Creative and Applied Computing Search
Duke University
2018 Co-facilitator, Literature and Ethics Reading Group: “Readings in Alasdair MacIntyre, Paul Ricœur, and Iris Murdoch”
2017–2018 Leader, Paleography Working Group, Duke University
2017–2018 Undergraduate Programming Assistant, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Duke University
2016–2017 Mentor for First Year Student, Department of English, Duke University
2015–2016 Elected Representative, Duke Graduate English Association
2013–2014 Co-organizer Duke University Graduate Student Workshop Series
LANGUAGES
Latin, Old English, Italian (advanced reading knowledge; elementary spoken), French and Anglo-Norman (reading knowledge; elementary spoken)
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Modern Language Association (MLA), Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS), The Medieval Academy of America (MAA), The New Chaucer Society (NCS), Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA), The International Piers Plowman Society (IPPS)