Education

PhD (English) – University of Toronto, 1988

Dissertation: The Imitation of the Word: The York Cycle and the Poetics of Realism – an examination of the mimetic techniques of York’s medieval cycle of biblical drama in relation to neo-Platonic Realism (supervisor: AF Johnston)

MA (English) – University of Toronto, 1983

BA Honours (English) – Acadia University, 1979

Honours thesis: The World of Little Things – Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders in relation to the literary theory and practice of Adalbert Stifter

Academic employment

University of Alberta

Professor, English, 2003-present

Chair, English and Film Studies, 2004-2009

Associate Chair (Graduate Studies), English, 2000-2003

Associate Professor, English, 1995-2003

Assistant Professor, English, 1988-95

Other teaching

Teaching Assistant, English, University of Toronto, 1984-1985 (Effective Writing; Drama and the Modern Theatre)

Teacher, English/Geography, Mapholaneng High School, Lesotho, 1979-1982

Teaching and research interests

I work primarily in the fields of early English theatre and queer theory. Other areas of scholarly interest include medieval rhetoric, allegory, the Bible, Middle Scots literature, Latin academic drama, contemporary gay theatre, film and media studies, and performance theory. Courses I have regularly taught at the University of Alberta include Critical Reading and Writing, The Later Middle Ages, Medieval and Tudor Drama, and Shakespeare. Senior seminar and graduate courses have included “The York Plays,” “The Towneley Plays,” “The Woman’s Part,” “Allegorical Bodies,” “Mystery Plays,” “(Im-)Morality Plays,” “The Body of Jesus,” “Queer Shakespeare,” “Gay Canadian Drama,” and “Gender, Sexuality, Performance.”

Administration

Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta

Chair, 2004-2009

Department of English, University of Alberta

Associate Chair (Graduate Studies), 2000-2003

Chair’s Advisory Council, 1997-1998, 2000-2003

Chair, Graduate and Graduate Placement Committees, 2000-2003

Member, Selection Committee (African literatures), 2001-2002

Undergraduate Programs Advisor, 1999-2000

Member, Graduate Committee, 1992-1995

Member, Curriculum Committee, 1989-92, 1996-1999

Member, Selection and Screening Committees (2 positions), 1996-1997

University of Alberta

Member, Chairs’ Council Executive, 2004-2009

Member, President’s Advisory Committee of Chairs, 2004-2009

Member, GFC Committee on the Learning Environment, 2007-2009

Member, FGSR Council, 2000-2003

Undergraduate Awards and Scholarships Committee, 2000-2003

Member, Graduate Awards Committee, 1998-2000

Member, Killam Annual Professorship Adjudication Committee, 1998

Journals and scholarly organisations

Executive member, Medieval and Early Modern Institute, 1996-2003 (from inception)

Executive member, Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society, 1999-2002, 2009-present

Treasurer, torquere (Journal of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association), 1998-2002 (from inception)

Canadian representative, Executive Committee, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, 1992-1995

Editorial Board member (North American representative for English language drama), Ludus [international journal of medieval drama studies], 1992-1994

Member, Production and Programming Committees, Poculi Ludique Societas, Toronto, 1983-88

Publications

Articles and Book Chapters (refereed):

“To ‘play the Sodomits’: a Query in Five Actions,” The Ashgate Research Companion to Queer Theory, ed. Giffney and O’Rourke (Ashgate, 2009), 304-331

“Christ,” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender vol.1, ed. Fedwa Malti-Douglas (Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 284-286

“Doubting Thomas: ‘Womans Witnes’ and the Towneley Thomas Indie,” ‘Bring furth the Pagants’: Essays in Early English Drama Presented to Alexandra F. Johnston, ed. Klausner and Marsalek (U of Toronto Press, 2007), 165-180

“‘Corected & not playd’: an Unproductive History of the Towneley Plays,” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 43 (2004), 38-53

“Chastity in the Stocks: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis,” Woman and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing, ed. Dunnigan, Harker, and Newlyn (Palgrave, 2004), 61-73

“Noah’s Wife: The Shaming of the ‘Trew’,” Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts, ed. Salisbury, Donavin, and Price (U of Florida P, 2002), 223-241

“Solid Flesh, Scattered Thoughts,” nasty 8 (2001)

“Ecce Homo,” Queering the Middle Ages / Historicizing Postmodernity, ed. Kruger and Burger (U of Minnesota P, 2001), 346-366

“Back to the Garden: Directing the York Temptation,” Early Theatre 3 (2000), 205-209

“The York Plays, Toronto 1998: Playing in all directions,” Early Theatre 1 (1998) 149-52

“‘Into a womannys lyckenes’: Bale’s personification of Idolatry,” Medieval English Theatre 18 (1998, for 1996), 63-73

(co-authored with Jean MacIntyre:) “‘Cloathes worth all the rest’: Costumes and properties in English theatre to 1642,” The New History of Early English Drama (Columbia UP, 1997), 269-285

“John Foxe and the Circumcised Stage,” Exemplaria 9.2 (1997), 281-313

“The Vicious Guise: Effeminacy, Sodomy, and Mankind.” Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Cohen and Wheeler (Garland, 1997), 303-320

“Learning to Write With Venus’s Pen: Sexual Regulation in Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria,” Desire and Discipline, ed. Murray and Eisenbichler (U of Toronto P, 1996), 265-279

“The Towneley Plays, or, The Hazards of Cycling,” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 32 (1993), 121-150

“Visible Words: The York Plays, Brecht, and Gestic Writing,” Comparative Drama 24 (1991), 289-305

“Passion, Pomp, and Parody: Alliteration in the York Plays,” Medieval English Theatre 11 (1992, for 1989), 150-161

“The Semiotics of Flatness,” Scintilla 2-3 (1986), 132-140

Book Reviews (solicited):

Elizabeth Baldwin, Lawrence M Clopper, and David Mills, ed. Cheshire: Records of Early English Drama (2007), Sixteenth Century Journal (2008), 1229-1230

David Klausner, ed. Wales: Records of Early Drama (2005), University of Toronto Quarterly 76:1 (Winter 2007), 381-82

Alan Bray, The Friend (2003) in Quidditas 24 (2006, for 2003), 120-124

Stephen Guy-Bray, Homoerotic Space: The Poetics of Loss in Renaissance Literature (2002), in torquere.4 (2004), 213-215

Cameron Louis, ed. Sussex: Records of Early English Drama, (2000), in University of Toronto Quarterly 71.1 (Winter 2001-02), 206-207

Laura F. Hodges, Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue (2000), in Arthuriana 11 (2001), 132-133

Allen J. Frantzen, Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from Beowulf to Angels in America (1998), in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 27 (2000), 366-340

Mitchell B. Merbeck, The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (1999), in Early Theatre 4 (2001), 179-182

Sara Miles and Eric Rofes, eds., Opposite Sex: Gay Men on Lesbians, Lesbians on Gay Men, in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 26 (1999), 339-341

C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (1999), in Lambda Book Report 8.05 (December 1999), 24

Mark C. Pilkinton, ed. Bristol: Records of Early English Drama, UTQ 68 (Winter 1998-1999), 437-438

Claire Sponsler, Drama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England (1997), in Essays in Theatre/Études Théâtrales 17 (1998), 84-86

Jonathan Goldberg, Queering the Renaissance (1994), in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature (1998), 248-249

J. Alan B. Somerset, Somerset: Records of Early English Drama (1994), in UTQ 65 (Winter 1995-1996), 186-187

Tibor Fabiny, The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art, and Literature (1992), in The Early Drama, Art, and Music Review 16 (1994), 112-113

Dennis Denisoff, ed., Queeries: An Anthology of Gay Male Prose (1993), in The Edmonton Journal (24 July 1994), D9

The N-Town Passion (Video. Dir. Robert Cohen. Text adapted and modernized by Edgar T. Schell), in Comparative Drama 26 (1992), 86-88

John R. Elliott, Jr. Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (1991), in Speculum 67 (July 1992), 663-665

Creative writing

“The Prayer of Jesus (a paraphrase),” Gathering (Summer/Autumn 2008), 55 [poem]

“A Queer Prayer,” Other Voices 8.1 (spring 1995): 25 [poem]

The Harrowing of Hell, First Mennonite Church, Edmonton, February 1991 [translation and adaptation of 13th-century liturgical drama]

“Reproaches from the Cross: A Reading for Good Friday,” Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church, Edmonton, April 1990 [Writer and reader/presenter]

“The Coming of Light: Readings for Advent,” dramatic monologues presented at churches in Edmonton, Tofield, and Saskatoon, December 1989 [Writer]

Play productions (director/producer):

The Temptation and Fall – The York Plays, University of Toronto, June 1998

Mankind – SITM Conference, Toronto, & Edmonton Fringe, August 1995

The Buffeting: A 15th-century Passion Play – University of Alberta, April 1993

The Interlude of Youth – University of Alberta & Festival of Early Drama, Toronto, May 1992

The Harrowing of Hell, First Mennonite Church, Edmonton, February 1991

The York Nativity, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 1986

The Towneley Cycle – University of Toronto, May 1985

[Co-director:] Wit and Science, University of Toronto & Rochester NY, October 1983

[Co-director:] Slaughter of the Innocents – The Chester Cycle, University of Toronto, May 1983

Conference Presentations

Refereed:

“Going Places with Towneley’s Shepherds,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds UK, July 2008

“The Towneley Conspiracy,” 12th Triennial Colloquium, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Lille, France, July 2007

“The Towneley Plays (just the facts, m’am…),” 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2007

“Playing with ourselves: modern academic production of medieval drama,” 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2006

“Doubting Thomas: The Towneley Mary Magdalene Pageant,” Third Annual Religious Studies Symposium: “Gender and Religion,” University of Alberta, April 2006

“Life/Cycle: Modern (Re-)Production of Medieval Drama,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds UK, July 2005

“‘And every mys amend’: Editing the Towneley Advent sequence.” 11th Triennial Colloquium, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Elx, Spain, August 2004

“‘Corected & not playd’: The Towneley Plays and Modern Theories of Medieval Play Production.” 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2004

“Offending the Audience: Staging Mankind” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 2003

“Towneley: Recycled … again.” 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2002

“Making a Scene: Taking Sides, Blocking Options.” 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2001

“On the Matter of ‘Queer’: A Roundtable.” 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2001

“Fag-like: Effeminacy and Sexuality.” 35th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2000

“Allegories of Sexuality.” Medieval Academy, Austin TX, April 2000

“Chastity in the Stocks: Sexuality and Gender in Lindsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis.” 9th International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, St Andrews, Scotland, August 1999

“Risking difference: Queer pedagogy and early English literature.” Queer Middle Ages conference, New York, November 1998

“Edward II acts up.” Medieval and Early Modern Institute conference, Making Contact: Natives, Strangers, And Barbarians, U of Alberta, October 1998

“Fleshing out the text: Homoerotic word/play and early English theater.” 6th annual Lavender Languages and Linguistics conference, Washington DC, September 1998

“The [Other] Woman’s Part: Effeminacy, sodomy, and the actor in early English drama.” 8th Triennial Colloquium, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Toronto, August 1995

“John Foxe and the circumcised stage.” Conference on “Gender in the Tongue of the Fathers: Ideology and the Subject in Medieval Latin Discourse.” Toronto, May 1995

“Director go to Hell: historical reconstruction and early drama.” 30th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 1995

“Like Will to Like and the Control of Sodomy.” Centre for Medieval Studies Conference on “Unorthodoxy and Suppression,” University of Toronto, February 1995

“Changing Places: Sodomy and Performance in Early English Drama.” Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, San Francisco State University, November 1994

“Sodomizing Authority: Homosexuality and Tudor Drama.” 29th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 1994

“‘Womans witnes’ and the other Resurreccio Domini: The Towneley play(s) of Thomas and Mary Magdalene.” 28th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 1993

“Vicious Company: Homosexual Representation in Mankind.” 28th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 1993

“Pulling Old Strings: Medieval Cycle Drama on Modern Stages.” 7th Triennial Colloquium, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Girona, Spain, July 1992

“Learning to Write with Venus’s Pen: Sexual Regulation in Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria.” Conference on “Sex and Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” University of Toronto, November 1991

“The tirauntes were tened: Alliteration and the Representation of Evil in the York Plays.” Sixth Triennial Colloquium, Société Internationale pour l'Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Lancaster GB, July 1989

“A Yorkshire Tragedy: The Death of Judas.” 24th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1989

“Signifying Nothing: Empathy and Acting Styles.” 23rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1988

“Creating the Towneley Cycle.” MLA Conference, Chicago, December 1985

Invited/Non-refereed:

Panel presentation: “English Departments and Senior Administration,” Canadian Association of Chairs of English Annual Meeting, Vancouver BC, May 2008

Panel presentation: “Graduate Student Funding,” Canadian Association of Chairs of English Annual Meeting, London ON, May 2005

“Old Texts, New Stages,” speaker series on ‘Drama and Performance in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods’, University of Calgary, March 2005

Queer Shakespeare,” Inside/OUT 2004/2005 Speakers’ Series, University of Alberta, October 2004

Panel presentation: “Professionalization of Graduate Students,” Canadian Association of Chairs of English Annual Meeting, May 2004

“Queer Identifications,” A(rt)-Typical: Understanding Sexual and Gender Diversity though the Arts, Ross Sheppard High School, May 2004

“To ‘Play the Sodomite’,” The(e)ories: Advanced Seminars for Queer Research, Dublin, July 2003

“Romeo and Juliet: Making a Scene” [web-based lecture], Preview Days, University of Alberta, February 2001

Panel presentation: Keywords (Department of English): “Flesh”, University of Alberta, February 2001

Panel presentation: Critical Dialogues (Department of English): “Periodicity: When Does Modernity (Really) Start?” University of Alberta, March 2000

Panel presentation, Medieval and Early Modern Institute: “Reconfiguring the subjects of study: the medieval middle and post-ality,” University of Alberta, April 1999

“Making a Big Scene: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” [lecture], Preview Days, University of Alberta, February 1999

Panel presentation: Medieval and Early Modern Institute: “The Erotics of Devotion,” University of Alberta, March 1998

Panel presentation: English Department Collation: “Ideology and the Classroom,” University of Alberta, November 1997

Facilitator, GMOC/AIDS Network workshops on “Coming Out in the ‘90’s,” October-December 1996, February-April 1997 [two 8-week sessions]

Panel presentation: “Influences” (Department of English), University of Alberta, November 1997

“Visible Words: The York Plays, Brecht, and Gestic Writing,” Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium, University of Alberta, Edmonton, January 1990

“Directions and Indirections: The Towneley Cycle,” International Towneley Symposium, Toronto, May 1985

Awards and grants

University of Alberta International Partnerships Fund and Faculty of Arts: meetings re exchange programs in Lille, France, and Leeds, UK July 2008

HFASSR Travel Grant: SITM Triennial Colloquium, Elx, Spain, August 2004

Andrew W Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library, San Marino CA, September 2003

HFASSR Travel Grant: International Medieval Congress, Leeds; The(e)ories: Advanced Seminars for Queer Research, Dublin, July 2003

SAS Travel: Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2002

SAS Travel: Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI, May 2001

Sheryl McInnes Award (Edmonton Community Pride academic award), 2000

HFAR Travel Grant: Lavender Languages conference, Washington DC, July-Sept 1998

SAS Materials/Services and Travel: York Temptation and Fall [play production], Toronto, May-June 1998

Alberta Foundation for the Arts: Mankind [play production], August 1995

SAS Materials/Services: Mankind, August 1995

SAS Travel: Mankind / SITM Triennial Colloquium, Toronto, August 1995

CRF Travel: SITM Triennial Colloquium, Girona, Spain, June-July 1992

SAS Release Time, Travel, and Materials/Services: Production of Youth, Edmonton & Toronto,Winter Term 1992

Alumni Alma Mater Fund: Production of Youth, Festival of Early Theatre, Toronto, May 1992

CRF Travel: SITM Triennial Colloquium, Lancaster GB, July 1989

Graduate Student Supervision

Supervisor:

Judith Anderson (PhD, candidacy December 2007, continuing)

Christopher Grignard (PhD, defended January 2009): Our Hometown: A Canadian Gay Male Theatre Project

Sheila Christie (PhD, defended January 2007): Cultural Functions: Histories of Community and Civic Cycle Drama

Leanne Groeneveld (PhD, defended September 1997): The Medieval Theatre of Cruelty: Antonin Artaud and Corpus Christi Drama

Christie Schultz (MA, defended December 2001): The Cure for Muses: This Time in Pieces

Douglas Hayes (MA, defended 14 July 1994): Mundus et Infans: A Dramaturgical Edition

Michael McGrath (MA project completed July 1994)

Robert N Wiznura (MA, defended 29 July 1992): The Recovery of Meaning: William of Ockham and the Plays of the Wakefield Master

Cosupervisor:

Lisa Ward Mather (PhD, defended May 2002): Rethinking Identity and Social Organization in Chaucer’s Fabliaux

Committee member / examiner:

Renée Ward (PhD, defended March 2009)

Jan Olesen (PhD, defended September 2007)

Ernst Gerhardt (PhD, defended August 2007)

Anne McTaggart (PhD, candidacy October 2007)

Karen Engle (PhD - Sociology, defended June 2005)

Brian Gibson (PhD, defended September 2006)

Kirsten Uszkalo (PhD, defended August 2006)

Kelly Laycock (PhD, candidacy October 2002)

Lesley Peterson (PhD, defended October 2005)

Jolene Armstrong (PhD - CompLit, candidacy May 2000)

Maureen Engel (PhD, candidacy November 1998, defended August 2003)

Anita Helmbold (PhD, candidacy March 2000, defended January 2002)

John Plews (PhD - MLCS, candidacy April 1998, defended June 2001)

William Kerr (PhD - English/Drama, candidacy April 1998, defended October 2000)

Kirsten Uszkalo (MA project completed June 2000)

Penelope Christopher (MA project completed April 2000)

Mary Smagler (MA project completed April 2000)

Elizabeth Koblyk (MA project completed July 1999)

Marianne Malo Chenard (MA, defended August 1998)

Len Falkenstein (PhD, defended December 1997)

Margaret Van Dyke (MA - Drama, defended November 1997)

Michael Clark (MFA - Drama, defended October 1997)

Carolyn Ives (PhD, candidacy completed March 1997; withdrawn)

Geraldine Weaver (MA, defended July 1994)

James Carr (MA, defended 1991)