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. I recently edited The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature vol. 1, 800-1558. I am completing a book called Emotions and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. I was a founding editor of the annual New Medieval Literatures), and I am co-editor, with Jill Ross, of Toronto Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Rhetoric, a new book series from Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. With Peter Mack I am General Editor of The Cambridge History of Rhetoric in five volumes (to appear in 2023).
Ph.D. (Comparative Literature) University of California, Berkeley
M.A. (Comparative Literature), University of California, Berkeley
B.A. (Comparative Literature), University of California, Berkeley
Medieval literature (Latin and vernacular)
Intellectuals, learning, and literacy in medieval Europe
Literary theory from ancient to early modern
History of rhetoric from ancient to early modern
(undergraduate) History of Literary Theory (Ancient to Modern); Ancient and Medieval Epic and Romance; The Romance of Pagan Antiquity
(graduate) Chaucer's Classicisms; Piers Plowman; Introduction to Literary Theory Medieval Education; Medieval Allegory; Medieval Literary Theory; The Sophists: Ancient Texts and Post-Classical Interpretations (with Ralph Rosen); Commentary and Gloss; Premodern Rhetorics; The Matter of Thebes; Boethius from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period
The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature vol. 1, 800-1558 (2016)
The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, ed. with Peter Struck (2010).
Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: The Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300 to 1475, ed. with Ineke Sluiter (2009).
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).
"Pathos and Pastoralism: Aristotle's Rhetoric in Medieval England"
I am also Genral Editor, with Peter Mack, of the The Cambridge History of Rhetoric in five volumes.