ALEXIS KELLNER BECKER

Transcription

1 ALEXIS KELLNER BECKER Gates-Blake South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL (857) EMPLOYMENT University of Chicago, 2015-present Collegiate Assistant Professor of the Humanities. Harper-Schmidt Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. EDUCATION Harvard University, Ph.D., English (Secondary Field in Medieval Studies). A.M., Dissertation: Practical Georgics: Managing the Land in Medieval Britain. Dissertation Committee: Nicholas Watson, James Simpson, Daniel Donoghue. University of Chicago A.B., English (Minor in Classics), General and departmental honors, Phi Beta Kappa. NON-DEGREE EDUCATION University of Oxford, Faculty of English Recognised Student, Keele University, Latin and Palaeography Summer School, Keele, Staffordshire, UK Course: Introduction to Medieval Documents, Summer TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS Old and Middle English language and literature; medieval British multilingualism; ecocriticism; political ecology; climate and literature; history of reading and the book; history of English; medieval documentary culture; the literature of labor; practical and pedagogical texts; literacy and contingent literacies; medieval constructions of gender; romance; Chaucer; Piers Plowman and the Piers Plowman tradition; medievalisms; illustrated books; comic books and graphic novels. PUBLICATIONS Sustainability Romance: Havelok the Dane s Political Ecology, New Medieval Literatures 16 (2016). 1

2 The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiae. (book review) The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 37.1 (2011) PRESENTATIONS Conference and Research Presentations Dung Mingled with Earth Upon Gravelly Ground. The Eleventh Biennial Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (Moscow, Idaho, June 2015). Hunger and Crisis on Either Side of the Fourteenth Century. The Nineteenth Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society (Reykjavik, Iceland, July 2014). Domesday Does Nothing for Them. The Forty-Ninth Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2014). Wel is set the mete he etes : The Dream of Sustainability in Havelok the Dane. Harvard University Medieval Colloquium (Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 2013). Ic neom freoh : Learning Language and Labor in Ælfric s Colloquy. Skill: Medium Aevum Graduate Student Conference (Oxford, UK, April 2013). Labbing Against the Land. The Eighteenth Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society (Portland, Oregon, July 2012). Sagði fru: Tristrams kvæði and Oral Poetic Transmission by Icelandic Women. The Forty-Sixth Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2011). Labour, Traveyle, and God s Curse: Julian of Norwich s Fourteenth Revelation and Genesis 3:16-19 in Middle English. For David Benson: New Work in Old and Middle English. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 2010). Panels and Conferences Organized Co-organizer of special session on Peasants and Texts. The Fiftieth Annual Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI, May 2015). Organizing Committee, The Second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group: cruising in the ruins: disciplinarity in the post/medieval university (Northeastern University, Boston, MA, September 2012). Organizing Committee, The Sixth Annual Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium Student Conference, Fear and Loathing: Encountering the Other in Anglo-Saxon England (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, February 2010). TEACHING EXPERIENCE University of Chicago, Humanities Collegiate Division. Professor Readings in World Literature III: Fragments and Incomplete Texts, Spring

3 Readings in World Literature II: Autobiography, Winter Readings in World Literature I: The Epic, Fall Teach a year-long sequence in the humanities core curriculum. Harvard University,. Sole Instructor Junior Tutorial: The Illustrated Book from the Middle Ages Onward, Spring Junior Tutorial: Worrying about Gender in Old English, Spring Designed and taught small course for honors English concentrators. Guided students through all aspects of writing their first major research paper. Departmental Writing Fellow, Fall 2014-Spring Work closely with the teachers and students of the Junior Tutorial program. Organize and conduct initiatives (such as meetings, workshops, and handouts) to improve both student writing and the quality of writing instruction. Hold weekly writing clinic, offering consultations tailored to the needs of individual students. Head Teaching Fellow Literature and Revolution: Great Books in Moments of Cultural Transformation (Professor James Simpson), Spring Managed course logistics and supervised three graduate student teaching fellows. Led a weekly discussion section. Gave guest lecture: King Arthur s Court in a Connecticut Yankee: In and Out of Modernity. Teaching Fellow History of the English Language (Professor Daniel Donoghue), Fall Literature and Sexuality (Professor Matthew Kaiser), Fall Arrivals (Professor Daniel Donoghue), Spring (Gave guest lecture on Middle Welsh literature.) Arrivals (Professor Nicholas Watson), Fall Led weekly discussion sessions, evaluated student work. Senior Thesis Advisor, Fall Spring Obedience, Disobedience, and the Subordinate Sex: Gender and the Heroic in Traditional Scottish Tales. Met regularly with student to discuss thesis progress; read and critiqued thesis drafts. Harvard University Extension School Summer School Writing Tutor, Summer Met with students, ranging from high school students taking summer school courses to extension school MA students working on their theses in all disciplines, to help craft arguments, develop their prose style, use sources effectively, and revise their writing. The Johns Hopkins University, Center for Talented Youth. Teaching Assistant Etymologies, Summer 2008 (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD). Crafting the Essay, Summer 2007 (Siena College, Loudonville, NY). Co-taught college-level courses for academically gifted students aged

4 FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Howard Travel Scholarship, New Chaucer Society, Ranulf Higden Scholarship, Higden Society, Universities of Keele and Liverpool, Dexter Summer Fellowship, Frank Knox Memorial Traveling Fellowship, PROFESSIONAL SERVICE Research Assistant, Culture and Belief 45: History of the English Language. Summer Conference Coordinator, The English Institute. August 2013-present. Librarian, Harvard University Child Memorial Library (English Department Library), present. Co-Coordinator, Harvard English Department Medieval Colloquium, RELEVANT EXPERIENCE Art Resource Center Intern, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, Editor, Otium literary magazine, Librarian, Doc Film Group, Co-Curator, Doc at 75. University of Chicago Special Collections, Winter Page, University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center, LANGUAGES Proficient reading ability: Old and Middle English, Latin, French. Reading ability: Middle Welsh, Old Norse, Spanish. PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment The Medieval Academy of America Midwest Middle English Reading Group Modern Language Association The New Chaucer Society The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature GRADUATE COURSE WORK Images, Idolatry, and Iconoclasm: (James Simpson) Necessary Truths: William Langland, Julian of Norwich, and the Idea of Vernacular Learning (Nicholas Watson) The Medieval Imagination: Visions, Dreams, and Prophecies (Nicholas Watson) Epic, Romance, and Saga: Orality and Literary History (Joseph Harris) Authorship, Genre, and Culture: (Barbara Lewalski) 4

5 New England: Classic Texts and Critical Approaches (Elisa New) The Animal Moment: The Visual and Verbal Animal (Marjorie Garber) The African-American Literary Tradition (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) The Victorian Novel (Leah Price) Image-Text-Context (Jeffrey Hamburger) Latin Palaeography (Richard Tarrant) Literary Theory and Criticism in the Middle Ages (Jan Ziolkowski) Middle Welsh Language and Literature (Catherine McKenna) Old Norse Language and Literature: The Viking Legacy (Stephen Mitchell) REFERENCES Professor Nicholas Watson Barker Center (617) Professor James Simpson Barker Center (617) Professor Daniel Donoghue Barker Center 208 (617) Professor Arthur Bahr Literature Section Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 14N Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA (617)