Sarah L. Higley
Professor of English
PhD University of California at Berkeley
Medieval vernacular languages and literature of Northern Europe, film and media studies, fiction
Research/Writing interests
Higley's primary interests lie in northern medieval literatures with an early
emphasis on language, linguistics, and poetic structure. Her later work in
fantasy and science fiction led her to explore medieval and modern
notions of magic, machinery, monstrosity, and artifice. Her recent publications
investigate the early origins of the werewolf, the medieval concept of the "robot," and manifestations throughout time of "simulacra"—lately, miniatures
and artificial languages. This last interest has inspired her book on Hildegard of Bingen's "Lingua Ignota." In the meantime, Higley is investigating the educational possibilities of New Media, especially that of immersive environments and Virtual Realities.
Selected publications
- Between Languages: The Uncooperative Text in Early Welsh and Old English Nature
Poetry, Pennsylvania State 1993
- Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion, Palgrave Macmillan 2007
- "Finding the Man Under the Skin: Identity, Hybridity, Expulsion, and the Werewolf," in Shadow Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous, ed. Thomas Shippey, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2005
- "The Wanton Hand: Reading and Reaching into Bodies and Grammars in Riddle 12," in Naked Before God: Uncovering the Body in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Benjamin Withers and Jonathan Wilcox, West Virginia 2003, 29-59
- "A Taste for Shrinking: Movie Miniatures and the Unreal City," in Camera Obscura 47 (2001/2002), 1-35
- "Alien Intellect and the Roboticization of the Scientist," in Camera Obscura 40-41 (1997), 131-62
- "The Spoils of Annwn: Taliesin and Material Poetry," in A Celtic Florilegium: Studies in Memory of Brendan O Hehir, ed. Kathryn A. Klar, Eve E. Sweetser, and Claire Thomas, Celtic Studies Publications 1996, 43-53
- "The Lost Parts of Artificial Women," in Bathhouse: A Journal of Hybrid Art 3.1 (2005)
- Publications in fiction and poetry magazines
Editor
- Nothing That Is: Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies, with Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Wayne State 2003
Forthcoming
- "Dressing Up the Nuns: Hildegard of Bingen's Clothing Items in the Lingua Ignota," in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, vol. 5, ed. Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker
- "Thought in Beowulf and Our Perception of It: Interiority, Power, and the Problem of the Revealed Mind," in The Hero Recovered: Essays in Medieval Heroism in Honour of George Clark, ed. Robin Waugh and Jim Weldon, Medieval Institute Publications
Teaching
Courses in Old English, Middle English, and Middle Welsh language and literature; film studies; creative writing
Recent undergraduate courses
- Speculative Fiction (spring 2013)
- Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (spring 2013)
- The Rewritable Beowulf (fall 2012)
- History of the English Language (spring 2012)
- Machinima: Film and Artistry in Virtual Worlds (spring 2012)
- The Body Monstrous in the Middle Ages (fall 2011)
- Old English Language and Literature (fall 2011)
- Medieval Celtic Literature in Translation (spring 2011)
- Avatar: Digital Artistry in Virtual Worlds and Their Development (fall 2010)
- Carnal Speaking: Men, Women, Body, and Discourse (spring 2010)
- Major Authors: Clarke and LeGuin (spring 2010)
- Great Books: War (spring 2009)
Recent graduate courses
- The Monstrous Feminine in the Middle Ages (fall 2012)
- Women Writers of the Middle Ages (spring 2011)
- Robots and Representation (fall 2009)
