Tim Machan

Biography

Tim William Machan is Mary Lee Duda Professor of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. His teaching and research involve both medieval language and literature and historical English linguistics. Focusing on Norse, Latin, and French as well as English, his medieval scholarship has explored the interplay among a variety of theoretical and practical concerns, including the cultural nuances of physical documents, literary expression, linguistic conventions, multilingualism, contact between English and other traditions, and the historicity of critical approaches. In English linguistics, he has examined individual and institutional responses to language change, the shifting status of varieties within the English linguistic repertoire, and the persistence of language attitudes from the medieval period until the present. His most recent books are English Begins at Jamestown: Narrating the History of a Language (Oxford, 2022) and Northern Memories and the English Middle Ages (Manchester 2020). His Languages, Legends, and American Dreams: The Emergence of English in Multilingual America, 1759-1850, is forthcoming from Oxford in 2026, and his Mythologies of English, a guest-edited issues of the Journal of English Linguistics, in 2027.  He has held grants and fellowships from the ACLS, NEH, and Fulbright Foundation.