RITA COPELAND

Professor of Classical Studies and English
Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Humanities
Chair, Graduate Group in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory

Education

Ph.D. (Comparative Literature) University of California, Berkeley
M.A. (Comparative Literature), University of California, Berkeley
B.A. (Comparative Literature), University of California, Berkeley

Teaching and research

Medieval literature (English, Latin, French)
Intellectuals, learning, and literacy in medieval Europe
Literary theory from ancient to early modern
History of rhetoric from ancient to early modern

Recent courses

(undergraduate) History of Literary Theory (Ancient to Modern); Ancient and Medieval Epic and Romance; Prison Narratives from Ancient to Modern.
(graduate) Chaucer's Classicisms; Piers Plowman; Introduction to Literary Theory Medieval Education; Premodern Rhetorics

Major publications

Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning (2001)
Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages (1996)
Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts (1991; rpt. 1995) See also the information at: New Medieval Literatures

Personal statement

I work across a number of fields and periods, including: medieval literature (English, Latin, French); intellectuals, learning, and literacy in medieval Europe; literary theory from ancient to early modern; the history of rhetoric from ancient to early modern. Usually my teaching combines my interests in antiquity and the Middle Ages-or how the Middle Ages understood antiquity. Currently I am working on representations of the intellectual in pre-modern Europe, from late antique rhetorical culture to late medieval university cultures and heretical communities. My other current projects include Medieval Literary Theory: Grammatical and Rhetorical Traditions, which is an anthology of primary texts, co-edited with Ineke Sluiter, and The Cambridge Companion to Allegory: Ancient to Modern, co-edited with Peter Struck. I am also a co-editor and co-founder of the Medieval Cultures Series (University of Minnesota Press), and co-editor and co-founder of the annual New Medieval Literatures (see information at Brepols).

Contact

Office: 720 Williams
Phone: (215) 898-6836
Fax: (215) 573-9451 Email • Home Page