Research Interests

Medieval Utopia

My work engages the recent scholarly discourse of medieval utopianism. I am especially interested in the medieval genres of allegory, dream-vision, and romance, because I believe they are utopian spaces within traditional discourse where theories of social change can be articulated. In other words, allegory, dream vision, and romance are literary genres where contemporary ideas can be expressed, condensed, and even simply played with. Quite often, this allows the author to better understand his or her historical conditions and point toward novel social and economic ideas. In my dissertation, I investigated five dream visions from the late 14th century: House of Fame, Pearl, Wynnere and Wastoure, Piers Plowman, and The Regiment of Princes. Each text is utopian in different ways. House of Fame, for example, discusses the potential inherent in both art and language to shape a better world, while Regiment of Princes illustrates a pecuniary shift in utopian thought due largely to the royal financial troubles of the early 15th century. I concluded by arguing that the study of these utopian moments contributes not only to our understanding of the past but to our own utopian thought.

In addition to that work, I am presently researching the connections between heterotopia and Le Morte Darthur, and have begun a book-length project on the utopian potential of the European romance tradition, with a special focus on the Arthurian tradition. As part of the latter project, I will be teaching a course on the history and development of the Arthurian legends in the Spring of 2011

Not Medieval Utopia

Well, I think I can get a lot out of "medieval utopia," but I'm also interested in Marxist Theory, Gender Theory, American Pop Culture of the 20th and 21st Centuries, and Science Fiction--you know, stuff I do in my "free time."