MICHELLE CAROL DE GROOT 36 Highland Avenue, #37 Cambridge, MA 02139 degroot@fas.harvard.edu 571.243.9018 Department of English EDUCATION MA, November 2013 PhD, expected May 2016 English Secondary Field in Medieval Studies University of Virginia BA, magna cum laude, May 2007 English Languages and Literature Medieval and Renaissance Concentration Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Oxford University Semester abroad, Autumn 2006 DISSERTATION Title: The Entangled Cities: Earthly Communities and the Heavenly Jerusalem in Late Medieval England Advisory Committee: Nicholas Watson, James Simpson, Daniel Donoghue Abstract: Heaven is conspicuous in late medieval English literature primarily through its absence. Texts that do describe the final community of the blessed, such as Pearl and The Prick of Conscience, concern themselves primarily with the difficulty of relating ineffable eternity to temporal life. Nevertheless, the image of the Heavenly Jerusalem, drawn from the Book of Revelation, frequently appears in both religious and secular narrative poetry detached from its biblical and theological contexts. Texts as diverse as St. Erkenwald, Sir Orfeo, and the House of Fame invoke the heavenly city to represent an anti-utopian paradise already embedded in the contemporary world. PUBLICATIONS Compiling Sacred and Secular: Sir Orfeo and the Otherworlds of Medieval Miscellanies, in The Transmission of Medieval Romance: Manuscripts and Metre (Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming) The Literary Qualities of Sermons, contribution to online exhibition at Houghton Library, A History of Medieval Christian Preaching as seen in the Manuscripts of Houghton Library, 2012
CONFERENCE PAPERS Turnyd Temples: The Heavenly City and St. Erkenwald, International Medieval Congress (Leeds, July 2014) Pearl and the Testing of the Bible, Transforming Scripture: Biblical Translations and Adaptations in Old and Middle English (St. Anne s College, Oxford, May 2014) Supplementum sensuum defectui: Skepticism and Proof in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, May 2014) A Way to Hell from the Gate of Heaven: Sir Orfeo and the Heavenly Jerusalem, Romance in Medieval Britain (Bristol University, April 2014) RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS Middle English Medieval Biblical literature Sacred and secular intersections in medieval literature Medieval romance Early drama History of the book Old English and history of the English language Medievalism and genre fiction, including science fiction and graphic novels EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE Editorial Assistant to James Simpson, Fall 2015. Assisting with glosses and footnotes to a new edition of Chaucer s works for Oxford University Press (forthcoming). TEACHING EXPERIENCE Teaching Fellow, Head TF, and Digital Fellow, Science Fiction (Stephen Burt), Fall 2015. Taught one section, responsible for course administration and maintenance of digital resources in support of the course. Junior Tutor, Creative Anachronisms: The Literary Uses of the Middle Ages, Spring 2013. Designed and taught a semester-long course for three juniors focused on the history and cultural analysis of medievalism, primarily in England. Each week paired a medieval text with a post-medieval one influenced by it in some way, culminating in an articlelength research paper on a topic of the student s devising. Teaching Fellow, Shakespeare s Rome (Leah Whittington), Spring 2013. Taught two sections. degroot@fas.harvard.edu 2
Teaching Fellow and Head TF, Science Fiction (Stephen Burt), Fall 2012. Taught one section and responsible for course administration. Teaching Fellow, Arrivals (Daniel Donoghue), Spring 2012. Taught one section. Arrivals covers English literature from Beowulf to Milton and is required of English majors. Teaching Fellow, Place, Space, and Region (Stephen Burt), Spring 2012. Helped facilitate seminar discussion and aided seminar administration. Teaching Fellow, Arrivals (James Simpson), Fall 2011. Taught two sections. Program for Academic and Leadership Skills, Washington D.C. Music teacher, Summer 2005 and Summer 2006. PALS is a summer enrichment program for middle-school aged girls from underprivileged backgrounds. Taught music appreciation and directed the music for a play performed at the end of the program. DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE Member of Advisory Committee, English Department Graduate Symposium, November 2014 Co-coordinator, with Nicholas Watson and Luis Girón-Negrón, of the symposium Translating the Bible in the Middle Ages, April 2012 Co-organizer of English Department Medieval Colloquium, 2010-2012 AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS Rudenstine Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2014-2015 Knox Memorial Travelling Fellowship, 2013-2014 Spent a year of paleographical research at Lincoln College, Oxford. Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Spring 2012 Awarded for excellence as a teaching fellow. Modern Language Association Medieval Academy of America New Chaucer Society PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS degroot@fas.harvard.edu 3
RESEARCH LANGUAGES Latin Italian French Middle English Old English Anglo-Norman GRADUATE COURSEWORK! Langland, Julian of Norwich, and the Idea of Vernacular Learning (Nicholas Watson)! Images, Idolatry, and Iconoclasm, 1350-1600 (James Simpson)! Literary Theory and Criticism in the Middle Ages (Jan Ziolkowski)! The Making of the Early English Canon, 1350-1950 (Nicholas Watson)! Adam and Eve (Stephen Greenblatt)! Magic, Carnival, and Sacrament (Julie Peters)! Methods in Book History (Ann Blair and Leah Price)! Latin Paleography and Manuscript Culture (Beverly Kienzle)! Preaching and Sermon in the Middle Ages (Beverly Kienzle)! The Waltharius (Jan Ziolkowski)! From Singers to Poets: Lyric Poetry in Medieval France (Virginie Greene)! Health, Medicine, and Healing in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Katharine Park)! Gerard Manley Hopkins (Helen Vendler)! The 18th-century Novel (Leo Damrosch) NON-ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE Core Knowledge Foundation, Charlottesville, VA Freelance editor, June 2008 August 2009 Editor, Listening and Learning Strand, September 2007 June 2008 Helped to develop an early reading program based on content-rich read-aloud material. degroot@fas.harvard.edu 4
REFERENCES Nicholas Watson nwatson@fas.harvard.edu 617.495.0969 Daniel Donoghue dgd@wjh.harvard.edu 617.495.2505 Stephen Burt burt@fas.harvard.edu 617.496.0285 James Simpson jsimpson@fas.harvard.edu 617.495.2983 Leah Whittington Cambridge, MA 02318 lwhittington@fas.harvard.edu 617.496.0291 Ralph Hanna Oxford University Faculty of English St. Cross Building Manor Road Oxford OX1 3UL United Kingdom ralph.hanna@keble.ox.ac.uk degroot@fas.harvard.edu 5