Rita Copeland

      Professor, Classical Studies and English
      and Chair, Comparative Literature
      University of Pennsylvania.

      Contact Information:
      Comparative Literature and Literary Theory
      720 Williams Hall
      Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304
      PHONE: 215-898-6836
      FAX: 215-573-9451
      EMAIL: rcopelan@sas.upenn.edu.


       
       
      I work across a number of fields and periods, including: medieval literature (English, Latin, French); intellectuals, learning, and literacy in medieval Europe; literary theory from ancient to early modern; the history of rhetoric from ancient to early modern. Usually my teaching combines my interests in antiquity and the Middle Ages--or how the Middle Ages understood antiquity. Currently I am working on representations of the intellectual in pre-modern Europe, from late antique rhetorical culture to late medieval university cultures and heretical communities. My other current projects include Medieval Literary Theory:  Grammatical and Rhetorical Traditions, which is an anthology of primary texts, co-edited with Ineke Sluiter, and The Cambridge Companion to Allegory:  Ancient to Modern, co-edited with Peter Struck.  I am also a co-editor and co-founder of the Medieval Cultures Series (University of Minnesota Press), and co-editor and co-founder of the annual New Medieval Literatures (see information at Brepols).

      Recent graduate courses that I have taught include: Chaucer's Classicisms; Piers Plowman; Introduction to Literary Theory (Comparative Literature); Medieval Education; Premodern Rhetorics. Undergraduate courses that I teach include: History of Literary Theory (Ancient to Modern); Ancient and Medieval Epic and Romance; Prison Narratives from Ancient to Modern.

      Books:

      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.
       
       


      See the information at:  New Medieval Literatures

       
       
       
       
       
       
       

      This page is maintained by rcopelan@sas.upenn.edu.

      Medieval Background/Border, and Logo (modified Medieval Cat teaching Mice ex MS Ashmole 1525, fol. 39) courtesy of Eric Kondratieff and Forum Antiquum, 2002..