Elizabeth A. Robertson

Professor of English
Director, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Office: Denison 245
Telephone: 303-492-7608
E-mail: roberte@colorado.edu


Research and teaching interests

Medieval literature; feminist theory

Education

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1982
M.Phil., Columbia University, 1976
M.A., Columbia University, 1975
B.A., Newnham College, Cambridge University, 1978
B.A., Barnard College, 1973

Publications

Books

Medieval English Religious Prose for Women: An Edition of "The Katherine Group." TEAMS: Medieval Institute Publications, forthcoming

Co-ed. with Stephen Shepherd, Piers Plowman: A Norton Critical Edition of the B-Text. Norton, 2006

Co-ed. with Christine Rose, Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature. Palgrave, 2001

Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1990

Co-ed. with C. David Benson, Chaucer's Religious Tales. Boydell and Brewer, 1990; rpt. 1996

Essays

“The Matter of Women.” The Blackwell’s Companion to Medieval English Literature. Ed. Marilyn Corrie. Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming

“Souls that Matter: The Gendering of the Soul in Piers Plowman.” Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: A Festschrift in Honor of Elizabeth Kirk. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 165-86

“Modern Chaucer.” The Oxford Guide to Chaucer. Ed. Steve Ellis. Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, 355-69

“Raptus and the Poetics of Married Love in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale and James I’s Kingis Quair.” Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of R.W. Hanning. Ed. Sandra Prior and Robert Stein. Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2005, 303-23.

“Marriage, Mutual Consent ,and Female Agency in Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Knight ’s Tale,’ ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale,’ and ‘The Franklin’s Tale.’ Drama, Narrative, and Poetry in the Canterbury Tales. Ed. Wendy Harding. PUM (Presses universitaires du mirail), 2003, 175-95

"This Living Hand: Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy, Materialist Immanence and the Female Reader of the Ancrene Wisse." Speculum 78 (2003): 1-36

"This Living Hand": Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy and the Female Reader of Ancresse Wisse." A Companion to the Ancrene Wisse. Ed. Yoko Wada. Boydell and Brewer, 2003

"Non-Violent Christianity and the Strangeness of Female Power in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Man of Law's Tale'." Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages. Ed. Sharon Farmer and Carol Pasternack. University of Minnesota Press, 2002, 322-52

"'Savoring Science': The Medieval Anchoress Reads the Ancrene Wisse." A Companion to the Ancrene Wisse. Ed. Yoko Wada. Boydell and Brewer, 2002

"Public Bodies and Psychic Domains: Rape and Female Subjectivity in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature. Co-ed. Elizabeth Robertson and Christine Rose. Palgrave, 2001, 281-310

"The Elvyssh Power of Constance: Christian Feminism in the Man of Law's Tale." Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 23 (Fall 2001)

"Measurement and the Feminine in Langland's Piers Plowman." New Critical Approaches to Langland's "Piers Plowman." Ed. Katherine Hewett-Smith. Garland, 2000

"Women in Medieval English Literature," "The Ancrene Wisse," "The Katherine Group." Medieval England: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Tess Tavormina. Garland, 1998

"Geoffrey Chaucer." The Reader's Guide to Literary Criticism. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1996

"Comprehending Rape in Medieval England." Medieval Feminist Newsletter 21 (Spring 1996): 13-15

"Historicizing Literacy: New Directions in Anglo-Saxon Criticism." Review 17 (1995): 211-24

"Medieval Subjectivity and the Church: A Modest Proposal for Future Research." Aestel 3 (1995): 61-80

With A. S. G. Edwards, "A Proposed Emendation of The Kingis Quair Line 402." Notes and Queries n.s. 41, (Sept. 1994).

"Medieval Medical Views of Women and Female Spirituality." Feminist Approaches to the Body in the Middle Ages. Ed. Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanberry. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1993

"Medieval Feminism and the Academy." Medieval Feminist Newsletter (Fall 1992)

"The Corporeality of Female Sanctity in the 'Life of St. Margaret.'" Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe. Ed. Timea Szell and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski . Cornell Univ. Press, 1991

"Aspects of Female Piety in Chaucer's Prioress's Tale." Chaucer's Religious Tales. Ed. Elizabeth Robertson and C. David Benson. Boydell and Brewer Press, 1990, 145-60

"An Anchorhold of Her Own: Female Anchoritic Literature in Thirteenth-Century England." Equally in God's Image. Ed. Julia Holloway. Peter Lang, 1990, 170-83

"The Rule of the Body: the Feminine Spirituality of the Ancrene Wisse." Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Texts: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet Halley. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1989, 109-34.

"Speaking from the Place of the Other: Identity and Narrative Form in the Life and Art of Zelda Fitzgerald." Denver Quarterly (Dec. 1984), 130- 39

With Michael Bell, "The sa inn pattern: A Study in Literary Idiom in Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon" in Jenseits von index und konkordanz. Ed. H. Fix. Peter Lang, 1983, 81-117.

With Dana Cuff, "Words and Images: The Alchemy of Communication." Journal of Architectural Education. 36, 2 (Winter, 1983), 8-15.

Selected honors and awards

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 2004-2005

Student Office of Alumni Relations Teaching Award, 2001

American Council of Learned Societies Senior Fellowship, 1998

Faculty Fellowship, CU Boulder, 1998

National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for Chaucer/Langland Institute , 1995

Elizabeth C. Wiegers Faculty Fellowship, CU Boulder, 1993

Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Excellence Award, 1993

Colorado Seminars in Literature Book Award for Early English Devotional Prose, 1991

Current projects

Souls that Matter: Representations of the Soul in Medieval and Early Modern Literature (book)

Chaucerian Consent: Women, Religion, and Subjection in Late Medieval England (book)

Entry on "The Squire's Tale" for the Chaucer Encyclopedia

"The Medieval Hand" (article)

Nuns, Reading, and Death in Late Medieval England (book)

Poverty and Need in Piers Plowman (book)

1215 in England (book)