Russell A. Peck
John Hall Deane Professor of English
PhD Indiana University
Middle English literature, medieval aesthetics, medieval intellectual history, myth and fairytale, history of drama and its performance, medievalism in British and American popular culture
Research/Writing interests
My main focus is currently the editing of Middle English Texts.
The Middle English Texts Series, which I began in 1990, has now 60 volumes
in print, with another 15 that should be completed by 2010; several of the
forthcoming volumes will be texts of early English drama, medieval
codices, popular romance, and saints lives. I am also working on folk and
fairytale motifs in Middle English (the loathly woman, in particular), and
I continue to develop my long-time commitments to Gower and Chaucer.
Selected publications
- John Gower: Confessio Amantis, 3 vols.,
Medieval Institute Publications 2000-2005 (editor)
- "The Politics and Psychology of Governance in Gower: Ideas of Kingship and
Real Kings," in A Companion to Gower, ed. Sian Echard, D.S. Brewer 2004, 215-38
- "The Phenomenology of Make-Believe in Gower's Confessio Amantis," in Studies
in Philology 91 (1994), 250-69
- "Mike Nichols' Working Girl, Cinderella, and the New Jerusalem," in
Christianity and Literature 42 (1993), 465-78
- Heroic Women from the Old Testament in Middle English Verse, Medieval Institute Publications 1991
- "Love, Politics, and Plot in Chaucer's Parlement of Fowles," in Chaucer
Review 24 (1990), 14-29
- Romance, Boece, Astrolabe, Equatorie, Lost Works, in Chaucer Annotated
Bibliographies, University of Toronto 1988
- "Chaucer and the Imagination," in Studies in the Age of Chaucer:
Proceedings 2 (1986), Fifth International Congress, 33-48 (keynote address)
- "Social Conscience and the Poets," in Social Unrest in the Later Middle
Ages, ed. Francis X. Newman, Binghamton 1986, 113-48
- Chaucer's Lyrics and Anelida and Arcite, in Chaucer Annotated Bibliographies, University of Toronto 1983
Teaching
Courses in medieval intellectual history, romance literature, the construction of literary influence, conceptualizing voice, contemporary drama
Recent undergraduate courses
- Classical and Scriptural Backgrounds to English Literature (fall 2006)
- Medieval Drama (spring 2007)
- Chaucer (fall 2005)
- Theater in England (spring 2007)
- Arthurian Traditions (spring 2007)
Recent graduate courses
- Compiling the Self and Society: Gower's Confessio Amantis and Langland's Piers Plowman (fall 2007)
- Romance: Tradition and Performance (spring 2006)
- Medieval Aesthetics
- Cognition, Literature, and the Arts
- Functions of Fairytale in Pop Culture
Honors and activities
- John Hurt Fisher Prize, John Gower Society, 2006
- Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Education, 1998
- National Endowment for the Humanities grants for the Middle English Texts Series, 1995-2009 (5 three-year grants)
- NEH Seminar for Teachers: Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, 1993 and 1994
- Olive B. O'Connor Chair, Colgate University, 1991
- Endowed Chair in the Humanities, College of St. Thomas, 1985-86
- Professor of the Year 1985: Gold Medal, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education
- NEH Seminar for Secondary Teachers: Chaucer (pilot program), 1983
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1980-81
- E. Harris Harbison Award for Gifted Teaching, Danforth Foundation, 1972
- Reckitt-Colman Professor of English, University of Hull (UK), 1967-68
russell.peck@rochester.edu
(585) 275-7157
307 Morey Hall
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