Ingrid Nelson

My interests include the literature of later medieval England (1200-1500), English poetry of all periods, genre theory, lyric theory and poetics, media theory, and cultural studies. I teach courses on Chaucer and other medieval and renaissance literature, and on poetry across the English tradition. A continuing concern with literary and material forms underlies both my scholarship and pedagogy. How does the form of literature – or any text – interact or intersect with the contexts of its cultural practice?

My first monograph, "Lyric Tactics: Poetry, Genre and Practice in Later Medieval England" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) defines the medieval English lyric genre based on its practices rather than its poetic forms. My current project, tentatively titled "Chaucer's Premodern Media," explores the institutional, spiritual, and perceptual contexts of medieval ideas of media, and draws on these to read Chaucer's poetry, especially "The Canterbury Tales," as works concerned with the literary capacities of mediation. My peer-reviewed essays on the medieval poetry, genres, and concepts of media have appeared in New Literary History (NLH), Exemplaria, and the Journal of English and Germanic Philology. A forthcoming essay, "Ambient Media and Chaucer's House of Fame," will appear in English Literary History (ELH). I also keep a blog about literature and the writing life.