Medieval and Early Modern Studies

The area of strength in medieval and early modern studies was formed to take advantage of university-wide faculty strengths in these areas as well as the rich resources for research available in Washington DC—most notably, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, and the Library of Congress.

Seminars focus upon the transnational and postcolonial aspects of England and Europe. Special topics courses and surveys of literary and cultural themes are also offered. Graduate seminars examine a wide range of materials both canonical and non-canonical. Students are also expected to take some of their coursework through the Folger seminar series.

The English Department houses the GW Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. The Institute sponsors frequent events and focuses upon early Europe within a transnational, theory-savvy frame.

Faculty members who regularly teach in the graduate program share many interests and have published widely.

• Holly Dugan's scholarship focuses on questions of gender, sexuality, material culture, and the boundaries of the body in late medieval and early modern England. She is currently working on a book-length project that examines the ephemeral history of perfume and the role of smell in early modern culture. She is also working on a project that examines the relationship between queer and feminist histories of sexuality through early modern accounts of ravishment.
• Jonathan Hsy primarily focuses on late medieval literature, with particular interests in trade, travel, and translation. His current book project examines how Anglo-French exchange and international commerce influenced the work of multilingual writers in pre-modern London. His research and teaching interests also include translation theory and sociolinguistics; medieval manuscript production; early print culture; romance and travel writing; rhetoric and poetics; and postcolonial theory.
• Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is the author of Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles; Medieval Identity Machines; and Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages. He is the editor of Thinking the Limits of the Body (with Gail Weiss); The Postcolonial Middle Ages; Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (with Bonnie Wheeler); and Monster Theory: Reading Culture. He blogs at In the Middle. His research interests include postcolonial approaches to the past; identity, corporeality and subjectivity; the posthuman; temporality; and critical theory.
• Alexa Huang is general editor of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, the author of Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange (Columbia University Press), which received the MLA Scaglione Prize, and editor or co-editor of Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia and Cyberspace; Class, Boundary, and Social Discourse in the Renaissance; and three journal special issues on topics related to Shakespeare on stage and on screen, including Shakespeare: Journal of the British Shakespeare Association. She has co-founded Global Shakespeares, an open-access digital video archive and research project. Her research interests include digital humanities, cultural globalization, Shakespeare and early modern English drama, transnational performance and film studies, and critical theory.

The English Department also numbers among its members the Miltonist Patrick Cook. Other early modern scholars at the George Washington University include Linda Peck (History), Marcy Norton (History), Leah Chang (French), Ingrid Creppell (Political Science) and Sergio Waisman (Spanish).

English Department Graduate Handbook, updated Spring 2014 (PDF)