[ Faculty in this Area ] John Miles Foley Michelle Karnes Johanna Kramer Emma Lipton

Program Description

The English Department is proud of its long-standing and growing program in medieval literature. The medieval faculty of the department offer their expertise in a broad range of areas of medieval literature from its Old English beginnings to late medieval and early modern literatures from England, the continent, and beyond:

John Miles Foley specializes in Old English poetry and electronic media as well as ancient Greek and South Slavic oral traditions.

Michelle Karnes studies the relationship of medieval devotional literature to medieval philosophy and theology from England and the continent.

Johanna Kramer specializes in Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic literatures and cultures with a focus on Old English and Anglo-Latin religious literature.

Emma Lipton’s work focuses on the intersections of literary genres, theology, and social history in late medieval England.

The department’s program in medieval studies for undergraduate and graduate students is considerably strengthened by the faculty and medieval offerings in other departments.

Graduate students can pursue a formal graduate minor in Medieval Studies by taking at least three courses on medieval topics in departments other than English. This interdisciplinary minor involves faculty in Art History and Archaeology, Classics, English, German and Russian Studies, History, Music, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Romance Languages, and Women's and Gender Studies. Doctoral candidates have combined work in Old English and Middle English literature with anthropology, art history, classical studies, oral tradition and folklore, psychoanalytic theory, gender studies, rhetoric and composition, French, German, religious studies, and other areas of strength within the department and across campus.

Our graduate students have been active at conferences, presenting papers at the Biennial Congress of The New Chaucer Society, the annual International Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI, and the Mid-America Medieval Association, among others. We have membership in The Newberry Library in Chicago, a resource that allows students to attend workshops, lectures, and performances relating to medieval and Renaissance topics.

We are also currently working on establishing an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in Medieval Studies.

The medieval program actively engages in a variety of ongoing activities. In our interdisciplinary medieval reading group we meet to discuss articles of interest from a variety of fields as well as work in progress by faculty and students.

We also host an e-mail list dedicated to medieval concerns and interests called MUMedievalists-L. This list is intended for distribution and exchange of information regarding events and developments at MU concerning the Middle Ages. We welcome new subscribers! To subscribe to MUMEDIEVALISTS-L, send an e-mail expressing your interest to our list manager Johanna Kramer. Or add yourself to the list by sending a subscription command to LISTSERV@PO.MISSOURI.EDU. Put the following command in the body of your e-mail message, not in the Subject line: SUBSCRIBE MUMEDIEVALISTS-L firstname lastname (be sure to replace “firstname” and “lastname” with your first and last name).

Please contact any of the medieval faculty members if you are interested in learning more about our program!

Course Offerings