Jennifer Bryan

  • Professor of English

Areas of Study

Education

  • BA, Williams College, 1992
  • PhD, UCLA, 1999

Biography

I am a literary scholar specializing in the Middle Ages. I teach many different medieval texts and traditions, including Chaucer, Dante, Beowulf, Arthurian romances, drama, the love lyric, and the Ovidian tradition. I also teach Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry, the Gothic revival, autobiography and memoir, and the history of the English language.

I am especially interested in how reading can change the way people understand themselves. This was the focus of my first book, Looking Inward: Devotional Reading and the Private Self in Late Medieval England. More recently, I explored the subject in an essay on 20th-century fantasy writing. I am currently writing a book about Chaucer.

  • Medieval European Literature
  • The English Renaissance
  • Lyric Poetry
  • Gender and Sexuality
  • The History of the English Language. 

Fall 2024

Arthurian Fictions — ENGL 140
What is Literature: Introduction to the Advanced Study of Literature — ENGL 299

Spring 2025

Lyric Poetry: Words That Matter — ENGL 202
Chaucer — ENGL 301