חוג הלימודים: לימודים קלאסיים, אנגלית וספרות השוואתית
קורס בבית ספר מנדל: רטוריקה ורגש: מהעת העתיקה לתקופה המודרנית
University of Pennsylvania
Department of English
Bio: I work across a number of fields and periods, including: medieval literature (English, Latin, French); literary theory from ancient to modern; the history of rhetoric; the reception of classical traditions in medieval and early modern Europe; intellectuals, learning, and literacy in medieval Europe; history of the emotions. Usually my teaching combines my interests in antiquity and the Middle Ages--or how the Middle Ages understood antiquity. I recently published Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (2021) and The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature vol. 1, 800-1558 (2016). Other recent work includes essays on commentary and gloss, and on Aristotle's Rhetoric in medieval England. I am also interested in representations of the intellectual in pre-modern Europe, from late antique rhetorical culture to late medieval university cultures and heretical communities. Other work includes Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory AD 300-1475, co-authored with Ineke Sluiter;and The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, co-edited with Peter Struck. I was a founding editor of the annual New Medieval Literatures ). I am General Editor, with Peter Mack (Warwick), of the Cambridge History of Rhetoric, a series in five volumes to be published in 2023. I am also co-editor, with Jill Ross, of Toronto Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Rhetoric, a new book series from Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. In fall, 2010, I was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, working in the research group Encountering Scripture, on medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic approaches to scriptural exegesis. In Spring 2013 I was a Fellow at Penn's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies for a seminar year on innovations in the thirteenth century. In Spring 2020 I was a Visiting Fellow at the Warburg Institute in London. (Link)
Course Information: Rhetoric and the Emotions from Antiquity to the Modern Era
The study of the history of the emotions has emerged recently as an important outgrowth of such fields as cultural studies, psychoanalysis, ethics, and the history of medicine. The history of rhetoric opens another window onto the historicized understanding of the emotions; current interest in historicizing emotional responses underscores the continuing relevance of rhetorical thought, whether in its pre‐modern doctrinal formations or the broader cultural constructions of rhetoric in our own era. While there has been some interesting movement on the rhetoric of the emotions (Daniel Gross’s book of 2006), the opportunities are wide open for thinking concretely and historically about rhetoric’s role in mobilizing and giving formal expression to the passions. This is especially true for the study of medieval rhetoric, which will be the main focus and engine of these seminars. My particular expertise lies with late classical and medieval rhetoric. My interests extend into modern rhetorical thought, especially Vico (d. 1744) and his reception in modern historiographical thought. Erich Auerbach was a notable modern exponent of Vico’s thought, using Vico’s understanding of the psychological power of rhetoric as a point of departure for his own famous analysis of early Christian stylistics.
Public Lecture: Rhetoric and the Emotions of the Ruler in the Later Middle Ages
The talk will investigate the impact of Aristotelian ethics and rhetoric on the psychology of rulership in the political theory of the late Middle Ages.
Selected publications:
Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts. Cambridge, 1991/1995.
Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages. Cambridge, 1996.
Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning. Cambridge, 2001.
Co-authored with Ineke Sluiter, Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory AD 300-1475. Oxford, 2009
Co-edited with Peter Struck, The Cambridge Companion to Allegory. Cambridge, 2010
Co-edited with Christopher Cannon and Nicolette Zeeman, Medieval Grammar and the Literary Arts, special issue of New Medieval Literatures (2009)
The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature vol. 1, 800-1558 (2016)
Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. Oxford, 2021