I attended the University of Toronto, earning a B.A. in Latin and English. Unable to choose between Classics and English, I went on to graduate school in Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley and received my PhD in 1994. Although my primary affiliation at Haverford is with the English department, I continue to work across literatures and languages, especially Middle English, Old French, and Medieval Latin.
I am particularly interested in medieval conceptions of gender, masculine as well as feminine, and in interdisciplinary studies which move between religion, literary criticism and art history. These interests are reflected both in my research and in the courses I have taught here at Haverford. These include English 201: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, English 220: The British Epic, English 205: The Legend of Arthur, English 301: Sex and Gender in the Middle Ages and English 385: Apocalyptic Literature. All of these courses except Chaucer are crosslisted with Comparative Literature.
Some Recent Publications:
Eloquent Virgins from Thecla to Joan of Arc. New York: Palgrave Press, 2003 (recipient of a First Book Prize Honorable Mention from the Society of Medeival Feminist Scholarship).
"Malory's Lancelot and the Lady Huntress." On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Mauareen Fries. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Fiona Tolhurst. Dallas: Scriptorium Press, 2001.
"Rhetoric, Power and Integrity in the Passion of the Virgin Martyr." Menacing Virgins: Representing Virginity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Ed. Kathleen Kelley and Marina Leslie. Newark: University of Delaware Press: 1999.
Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays. Ed. Maud Burnett McInerney .Garland Publishing, 1998.
'"Is this a Mannes Herte?' Troilus' Trouble with Ovid." Masculinities in Chaucer, ed. Peter Beidler. Boydell and Brewer, 1997.
"'In the Meydens Womb': Julian of Norwich and the Poetics of Enclosure." Medieval Mothering, eds. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler. Garland Publishing, 1996 rpt.1999.
"Opening the Oyster: Pearls in Pearl." Aestel I (1993).
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