I am an incoming Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine where I specialize in Medieval literature and culture. I have a particular interest in the intersection of sexuality, religion, and race, as well as medieval and classical theories of ethics and the emotions. My first book, Forms of Suffering: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Chaucerian Pity, is forthcoming in September 2026 from Cornell University Press. Forms of Suffering examines the development and transformation of the language of pity in medieval literature and culture through a study of the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer. I argue that Chaucer reformulated trans-European pity discourses for an English audience, and, in the process, made pity a central ethical and aesthetic concern in English literature. Moreover, a study of Chaucerian and medieval pity discourse, I contend, is essential for understanding long histories of misogyny, class violence, and racism.

I hold a Ph.D. in English from Duke University and a B.A. in English and Lating from Sewanee: The University of the South. My work has appeared in Exemplaria, Religion & Literature, Journal of Medieval and Modern Studies, and Believing Ancient Women: Feminist Epistomologies (Edinburgh University Press), among other venues. I also write public essays, including articles on the history of banning queer books for The Conversation and essays for Ploughshares on a range of topics including modern representations of medieval violence, the history of attention, and grief and literature.

I am also developing two other projects (one digital and one monograph) investigating the social politics of language in medieval and Early Modern English and American cultures. The first is a collaborative digital project formed in partnership with the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke University. Ethical Consumption Before Capitalism analyzes the language of consumption in early print books using computational methods (topic modeling and word embeddings). The second, When Eve Delved: Gender, Nature, and Labor in the 15th Century, examines works by authors such as Robert Henryson, Margery Kempe, and the N-Town. Focused on the 15th century when the Medieval Warm Period was ending and bleak winters were occurring with increasing frequency, this project studies how literary images of women's agricultural labor transformed with the changing climate. More information about these projects as well as my teaching can be found under the Research and Pedagogy sections of my site.