The University of Texas at Austin

Faculty Member, English

Perceval Professor, & Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature

Liberal Arts: English, Women's Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Comparative Literature, Religious Studies

About

My work focuses on literary, cultural, & social encounters between worlds, & webs of exchange and negotiation between communities & cultures, particularly when transacted through issues of gender, race, sexuality, & religion. 

I am especially interested in medieval Europe’s discoveries & rediscoveries of Asia and Africa. 

My first book, Empire of Magic (Columbia UP, 2003, 2004), traces the development of a  literary genre—European romance, &, in particular, the King Arthur legend—in response to the traumas of the crusades & crusading history, & Europe’s myriad encounters with the East:

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Magic-Medieval-Politics-Cultural/dp/0231125275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309336724&sr=8-1

Among current projects, I am completing The Invention of Race in the European MIddle Ages, a volume commissioned by the Medieval Academy of America & Toronto University Press, & have begun Global England: A Literary Archeology of the Global Middle Ages.  Lynn Ramey & I are co-editing a special issue on The Global MIddle Ages for Literature Compass, Wiley-Blackwell's digital journal.

I have also published on postcolonial Southeast Asia & transnational feminisms.

My teaching focuses on the literatures & political cultures of the Crusades, holy war, the genealogies & texts of medieval romance, the literatures of medieval England, Chaucer/s, medieval biography, transcultural travel narratives, premodern race, race theory, feminist theory, & transnational feminisms.

In 2004, I created, coordinated, & taught in “Global Interconnections: Imagining the World 500-1500 CE,” a 9-credit-hour experimental transdisciplinary graduate seminar collaboratively taught by seven faculty to introduce an interconnected world spanning Europe, Dar al-Islam, Mahgrebi  and SubSaharan Africa, India, China, & the Eurasian continent.

For a description, see the article, “The Global Middle Ages” under Papers.

In 2007, Susan Noakes & I founded The Global MIddle Ages Projects (G-MAP), the Mappamundi digital initiatives, & the Scholarly Community for the Global Middle Ages (SCGMA): http://www.laits.utexas.edu/gma/portal/

A documentary created by a student, Murray Sanders, for my undergraduate Bridging Cultures course, Envisioning Muslims: The Middle Ages and Today, can be viewed here:
http://vimeo.com/6914846

My work has been honored with 6 research fellowships, including fellowships at the Stanford Humanities Center, Brown University's Pembroke Center, the University of California's Humanities Research Institute, & the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research in the Humanities.

Anonymous donors created the Perceval Endowment ($320,000) in 2007 to support my work. 

I was a collaborator in a 2008 NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities award ($250,000), & currently serve on the Advisory Council of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory).  I'm also Principal Investigator for a Level II NEH Start Up Grant in Digital Humanities, awarded for 2011-12 ($50,000) for the Bibliopedia Project (creators of Bibliopedia: Mike Widner & Jason Yandell).

In 2012-13, I will hold the Winton Chair ("for paradigm-changing research") at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities. There, I'll co-convene a year-long faculty-graduate advanced seminar as a learning experiment: "Early Globalities I: Eurasia & the Asia Pacific" & "Early Globalities II: Africa, the Mediterranean, & the Atlantic."

For a June 2011 video interview, "Transhumanities," in the UCHRI Perspectives Series, see: http://www.vimeo.com/24796203

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