Research Interests
Medieval literature and culture, book history, miscellany manuscripts, compilation, Middle English poetry, Anglo-Latin poetry, theories of genre, anonymous literature, theories of authorship, medievalism, speculative fiction, analog gaming, game design.
Education
Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, August 2021
Dissertation: How to Read a Medieval Book: Recomposing Bodley 851
Supervisors: Jessica Rosenfeld, David Lawton, Christian Schneider, Michelle Karnes
Certificate in Early Modern Studies, 2019
M.A. English and Comparative literature, WashU, 2017
Academic Employment
The University of Chicago
Writing Specialist, College Writing Program (September 2021 – Present)
Humanities Core Sequence: Human Being and Citizen
Resident Head, Hoover House, Max Palevsky Residential Commons East Housing and Residence Life
Washington University in St. Louis
Instructor of Record
English Department
Comparative Literature
First Year Program
Publications
Books and Volumes
The Making and Meaning of A Medieval Manuscript: Interpreting MS Bodley 851 . Boydell and Brewer (forthcoming, 2025).
Peer Reviewed Articles
“Book Work: Toward an Extended Codicological Intentionalism.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 55, no. 2 (2025): 159-184.
“Michael of Cornwall’s Second Invective Against Henry of Avranches,” with Paul Vinhage. Journal of Medieval Latin 34 (2024): 153-187. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JML.5.136331
“Michael of Cornwall’s First Invective Against Henry of Avranches,” with Paul Vinhage. Journal of Medieval Latin 33 (2023): 17-56. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JML.5.136331
“Wicked Wives and the Insatiable Virgin: Reading the Codicological Unconscious in a Fragment of MS Bodley 851.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 44 (2022): 193-232. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/102/article/872794
“Bookish Brains and Visionary Learning in the Apocalypsis goliae episcopi.” ELH 89, no. 1 (2022), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2022.0000.
“Poetics of Purgation in Seamus Heaney’s ‘Station Island’ Sequence,” Philological Quarterly 101, no. 1-2 (2022): 111-133. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A713671334/LitRC
Edited Volumes
Co-editor, with Arthur Bahr and Zachary Hines, Metaphors of Compilation. Special issue of English Language Notes (forthcoming, Spring 2026).
Creative
Exemplar. A tabletop board game structured around late-medieval manuscript compilation (Revise and resubmit, Scholarship and Lore: Games for Learning, an imprint of Central Michigan University Press).
Previous edition available for playtesting: https://towergrovegames.com/blog/please-playtest-exemplar/
Awards, Fellowships, and Grants
Fellowships
New Chaucer Society Early Career Fellow at the Bodleian Library (2024-25)
Grants
Franke Institute Events Grant (2025)
New York Medieval Society Teaching Award (2025)
Medieval Academy of America Centennial Grant (2024)
University of Chicago, Regenstein Library Grant (2024)
Subventions
New York Medieval Society Book Subvention Award (2024)
Other Funding
New Chaucer Society Donald R. Howard Scholarship (2024)
Sewanee Medieval Colloquium Travel Award (2024)
International Piers Plowman Society Derek Pearsall Travel and Research Fund (2023; declined)
New Chaucer Society Donald R. Howard Scholarship (2022)
New Chaucer Society Donald R. Howard Scholarship (2018)
Works in progress
Book Projects
Codicological Categories in Medieval England (in preparation).
Board Games as Literature: Agency, Imagination, and the Ludic Text (in preparation).
Articles
“Michael of Cornwall’s Third Invective Against Henry of Avranches,” with Paul Vinhage (In preparation).
“Goliardic Networks: Circulation and Influence of Anglo-Latin Poetry in Fourteenth-Century England” (In preparation).
“Marguerite Porete’s Bookish Imagination” (In Preparation).
“Revisiting the Production of the Z-text of Piers Plowman” (In Preparation).
Creative
Purgatory’s Ponzi. A tabletop board game that uses prayer as currency, inspired by Dante’s Purgatorio (In preparation).
Papers Presented
Threads Organized
“The Craft of Self.” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. April 2024. Sewanee, TN.
Sessions Organized
“Analog Medievalisms.” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. July 2026. Freiburg, Germany.
“Interloping Latinities.” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. July 2026. Freiburg, Germany.
With Angela Weisl, sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. “Knights on the Table: Medievalism in Board Games.” International Congress on Medieval Studies. May 2025. Kalamazoo, MI.
With Zachary Hines. “Postmedieval Collections and Compilations.” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. July 2024. Pasadena, CA.
“Reading Medieval Miscellanies.” International Medieval Congress. July 2020. Leeds, U.K. Cancelled.
Papers Presented
Discussant. “Designing Medieval Games: A Roundtable.” International Congress on Medieval Studies. May 2025. Kalamazoo, MI.
“Unauthoring Interpretation through Manuscript Production Units.” MLA Annual Convention. Panel: Unauthoring Middle English Studies. January 2025. New Orleans, LA.
“Heaven’s Currency: Prayer, Debt, and Value in Purgatorio and the House of Fame.” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. Panel: Debt and Indebtedness I: Indebted Communities. July 2024. Pasadena, CA.
“Speculative Medievalisms in A Memory Called Empire.” International Congress on Medieval Studies. Panel: Science Fiction Medievalisms (3): Complex Readings. May 2025. Kalamazoo, MI.
“Plagiarism and Personhood in Michael of Cornwall’s Invectives against Henry of Avranches.” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. Panel: Community Identity in Literature. April 2024. Sewanee, TN.
“Examining Variance without Variants: Bodley 851 and the Early Circulation of the C-Text of Piers Plowman.” Meeting of the International Piers Plowman Society. Panel: The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman. July 2023. London, U.K. [paper withdrawn for lack of funding]
“Abstraction and Exemplarity in Medieval-themed Board Games.”
International Congress on Medieval Studies. Panel: Games and Medievalism II: Reading Games in Medieval Culture. May, 2023. Kalamazoo, MI.
“Walter Map’s Piers Plowman,” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. Panel: Between the Lines and Margins. Originally July 2020, postponed to July 2022 due to SARS-CoV-2. Durham, U.K.
“One Scribe, Two Texts, and a Missing Quire at the Center of Bodley 851,” Organizer and panelist. International Medieval Congress. July 2020. Leeds, U.K. Panel: Reading Medieval Miscellanies. Cancelled due to SARS-CoV-2.
“Writing Brains, Reading Memories in the Apocalypsis Goliae Episcopi,” English Dept. Graduate Colloquium, Washington University. April 2019. St. Louis, MO.
“That which we would otherwise call the Z-text of Piers Plowman,” Meeting of the International Piers Plowman Society. Panel: Editing Scribal Texts I. April 2019. Miami, FL.
“Apocalypsis Libri Impressi,” Congress of the New Chaucer Society. Panel: The Print Devolution. July 2018. Toronto, ON.
“‘What quill of scribe, what voice, what tongue!’: Forgetting Heaven in the ‘Apocalypsis Goliae,’” International Congress on Medieval Studies. Panel: Imagining the Afterlife. May 2018. Kalamazoo, MI.
“A Coincidence of Form: Manuscript Formalisms and the Tyranny of the Text,” International Congress on Medieval Studies. Panel: Middle English Devotional Literature. May 2017. Kalamazoo, MI.
Teaching Experience
The University of Chicago
Writing Specialist Humanities Core Sequence: Human Being and Citizen Autumn 2021 - Present
Washington University in St. Louis
Instructor Imagining the Medieval in Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction Fall 2020
Co-Instructor, with David Lawton Literature in English: Early Texts and Contexts Fall 2018
Teaching Assistant, with David Lawton Voice, Language and Power: Late Medieval Religious Writing Spring 2018
Instructor Writing I: What is Justice? Fall 2017
Instructor Writing I: What is Justice? Fall 2016
Research and Editorial Positions
Washington University in St. Louis
Chaucer Encyclopedia. Research Assistant for Jessica Rosenfeld.
Exemplaria vol. 31.3 (2019). Editorial Assistant for Jessica Rosenfeld.
The Norton Chaucer (2019). Proofreader and Copy Editor for David Lawton.
Chaucer and the Subversion of Form (2018). Proofreader and Copy Editor for Thomas A. Prendergast and Jessica Rosenfeld.
Professional Affiliations
Modern Language Association
Medieval Academy of America
New Chaucer Society
International Piers Plowman Society
Early English Text Society
Academic Service
University of Chicago
Board Member, TEAMS Board of Directors (2024-present)
Contributing Reviewer, International Congress on Medieval Studies (2024)
Co-convener, Midwest Middle English Reading Group (2022-present)
Washington University in St. Louis
Co-convener, Medieval Colloquium Writing Group
Co-convener, Reading Group on Form and Formalism
Co-convener, Latin Reading Group: Walter Map