I am interested in the interaction between secular and sacred content and narrative types in medieval texts. My dissertation project, which will hopefully become a monograph on the subject, used narrative theory, medieval rhetoric, and theological interlocutors to describe "conversion of narrative," which I found in several texts that oddly juxtaposed seemingly unlike "secular" and "sacred elements." Writing the dissertation led me along the way to study biblical allegory, medieval literary allegory, Boethius' theory and poetry (The Consolation of Philosophy) and literary rhetoric in the Middle Ages. My work aims to present new, systematic, and more nuanced approaches to traditionally puzzling structures in medieval narrative texts. My other methodological interests lie in some new currents in postcritique, postsecularism, and manuscript studies. As a postdoctoral fellow, I hope to work more in the scholarship of monastic poetics, literary continuity between "Old" and "Middle" English, and the gendered mystical poetry of Hildegard of Bingen.
My research considers how contemporary theological aesthetics and philosophical theology might be put in conversation with literary theory and criticism. In his dissertation, he proposes a theologically inflected vocabulary informed by, among others, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Erich Przywara to complement prevailing literary critical accounts of the fragment and fragmentation in the works of authors including James Joyce, J. R. R. Tolkien, and T. S. Eliot.
Jennifer Birkett is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shakespeare at Notre Dame. She researches early modern drama with a specific interest in terms of endearment and the relationship between text and performance. Her scholarship characteristically magnifies quirky details and contradictions in order to arrive at new affordances. She is deeply committed to empowering female voices within dramatic narratives and combatting gender inequality by championing mutuality and solidarity.While a graduate student at Notre Dame, Jennifer worked as a managing editor for the Religion & Literature journal, co-directed the Early Modern Circle, and served as Social and Professionalization chairs for EGSA. She has taught multiple sections of Writing and Rhetoric, Shakespeare and Performance, and Intro to Film and Television.
I am interested in the interaction between secular and sacred content and narrative types in medieval texts. My dissertation project, which will hopefully become a monograph on the subject, used narrative theory, medieval rhetoric, and theological interlocutors to describe "conversion of narrative," which I found in several texts that oddly juxtaposed seemingly unlike "secular" and "sacred elements." Writing the dissertation led me along the way to study biblical allegory, medieval literary allegory, Boethius' theory and poetry (The Consolation of Philosophy) and literary rhetoric in the Middle Ages. My work aims to present new, systematic, and more nuanced approaches to traditionally puzzling structures in medieval narrative texts. My other methodological interests lie in some new currents in postcritique, postsecularism, and manuscript studies. As a postdoctoral fellow, I hope to work more in the scholarship of monastic poetics, literary continuity between "Old" and "Middle" English, and the gendered mystical poetry of Hildegard of Bingen.
My research considers how contemporary theological aesthetics and philosophical theology might be put in conversation with literary theory and criticism. In his dissertation, he proposes a theologically inflected vocabulary informed by, among others, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Erich Przywara to complement prevailing literary critical accounts of the fragment and fragmentation in the works of authors including James Joyce, J. R. R. Tolkien, and T. S. Eliot.
Jennifer Birkett is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shakespeare at Notre Dame. She researches early modern drama with a specific interest in terms of endearment and the relationship between text and performance. Her scholarship characteristically magnifies quirky details and contradictions in order to arrive at new affordances. She is deeply committed to empowering female voices within dramatic narratives and combatting gender inequality by championing mutuality and solidarity.While a graduate student at Notre Dame, Jennifer worked as a managing editor for the Religion & Literature journal, co-directed the Early Modern Circle, and served as Social and Professionalization chairs for EGSA. She has taught multiple sections of Writing and Rhetoric, Shakespeare and Performance, and Intro to Film and Television.