Professor of Medieval Literature
Office: Keezell
211
Phone: 540-568-3762 (office)
540-887-6177 (home)
Fax: 540-568-2983
Email: bankerda@jmu.edu
Office Hours:
Courses: On sabbatical 2013-14 academic year
Specialization: Medieval literature: Old English,
Middle English, Old Norse/Icelandic,
Old Irish, Chaucer; Hagiography;
Bibliographic and Textual Criticism; Anglo-
Saxon literature & lexicography;
History of Nineteenth-Century Medieval
scholarship, Manuscript
and early book history
Education:
Ph.D., English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Certificate
in Modern Icelandic
M.A., English, Western Washington University
B.A., French, Michigan State University
Professional and Administrative:
Reviewer: Old
English Newsletter (History of the
Discipline), 2006-2011
Faculty-Member-in-Residence, London, Fall 2004
Publicity:
Interview on The Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and Carrier Library's unique
copy, with Sarah McConnell. With Good Reason, National Public Radio
(Virginia). February 12, 2011.
Current Research:
An Inconvenient Dictionary: Forgetting Bosworth-Toller, One Letter at a Time, book in draft
"R. T. Hampson’s “Lost” Transcipt of Cotton Tiberius B.i," article under review
"'Stille as stoon,' Deep Thoughts, and Metaphorical Movement in Chaucer's Poetry,"
article in progress
"Chaucer's Surreal Regions: World-Building in the Late Fourteenth Century," article in
progress
Research Awards:
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2013-2014
JMU, College of Arts & Letters Educational Leave, Spring 2012
Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award, College of Arts & Letters, Summer 2012
Cordell Research Fellow, Indiana State University Cordell Collection, Summer 2010
JMU, International Programs Faculty Development Grant, summer 2009 (Oxford);
Summer 2011 (Leeds and Oxford)
JMU, College of Arts & Letters, CAL Faculty Incentive Grant, May 2009 (Oxford)
JMU, College of Arts & Letters, CAL Faculty Incentive Grant for the development of
an interdisciplinary course, Manuscript and Print Culture in the Late Middle Ages
and Early Modern Periods (with Mark Rankin), Summer 2008 [course taught
Spring 2009]
The Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award, Dictionary Society of North American, summer 2007
JMU Faculty Educational Leave, Spring 2004
Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Spring 2004
The Falconer Madan Prize & The Bibliographical Society (England) Fellowship,
2004
The Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award, Dictionary Society of North America, 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
and Texts at The British Library, 2001
Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award, College of Arts and Letters, 1998, 2002, 2007
College of Arts and Letters Faculty Summer Research Grants, 2000, 2006
University of Illinois Dissertation Fellowships, 1994, 1995
Pauline Dillon Gragg Fellowships, 1994. 1995
University of Illinois International Dissertation Research Grant, 1993
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
Teaching Awards:
James Madison University:
Nominated for the Provost Graduate Advising Award, 2011
Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning: A Workshop
for Faculty and
Librarians, Carrier Library, Summer 2006
Outstanding Educator Commendations, Alpha Phi Omega National Service
Fraternity
College of Arts & Letters Faculty Enhancement Grant (with Mark Rankin), for
the development of an upper-level English course: "Manuscript and Print Culture
in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Eras," Spring 2008
University of Illinois:
Harriet and Charles Luckmann Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching
Award
Liberal Arts and Sciences College Award for Excellence in Undergraduate
Teaching
for Graduate Teaching Assistants
Leo B. Kneer Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for the Department
of English
Publications:
Review of Rebecca Brackmann, The Elizabethan Invention of Anglo-Saxon England:
Laurence Nowell, William Lambarde, and the Study of Old English (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2012). In The Medieval Review (forthcoming spring 2013).
“Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.887: An Unpublished Seventeenth-Century
Anglo-Saxon Glossary by Nathaniel Spinckes.” The Library: Transactions of the
Bibliographical Society 13 (2012): 400-422.
“Teaching Medieval and Early Modern Manuscript and Print Culture in Theory and Practice” (with Mark Rankin), in “Teaching Book History,” special issue of Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 19.1 (Spring 2012): 75-91.
“Legendary Lexicography: Joseph Bosworth’s Hidden Debt to Henry J. Todd’s Edition
of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language: Cunning
passages, contrived Corridors: Unexpected Essays in the History of
Lexicography”, Ed. Michael Adams, Milan: Polimetrica Press 2011. pp 25-55.
"Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library, A
Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research," Winter/Spring 2008:
37.1 (http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371index.htmCEA Forum
(with Melissa Van Vuuren).
“Memorials, Tributes, History of the Discipline, for 2009,” The Year’s Work in Old English Studies in Old English Newsletter: For 2004: 39.2 (2006): 9-14; for 2005: 40.2 (2007): 8-15; for 2006: 41.2 (2008); 10-23); for 2007 (forthcoming); for 2008 (in progress); for 2009: 43:1-2 (2011): 12-21.
“Teaching the Middle Ages through Travel in a Semester Residential Program,” Studies
in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 16.1 (2009): 39-70.
"Old English Dictionaries," Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics.
2d ed. Ed.
Keith Brown. Oxford: Elsevier, 2005.
Review of The Correspondence of Edward Lye. Ed. Margaret Clunies Ross and Amanda
J. Collins. Publication of the Dictionary of Old English 6. Toronto: Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies, 2004. In Journal of English and Germanic Philology
106.3 (2007): 414-416.
“Anglo-Saxon Conversion Narratives: Research Problems and
Pedagogical
Oportunities,” Approaches to Current Scholarship
and Teaching, ed. Paul Cavill.
D.S. Brewer, 2004. 141-52.
"Secularizing the Word: Conversion Models in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,"
Chaucer
Review 37 (2003): 196-218.
"T. Northcote Toller and the Making of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Supplement,"
Textual
and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller
and the
Toller Memorial Lectures. Ed. Donald Scragg. D.S. Brewer, 2003. 301-21.
“Reconciling Family and Faith: Ælfric's Lives
of Saints and Domestic Dramas
of Conversion,” Via Crucis: Essays
on Early Medieval Sources and Ideas in
Memory of J. E. Cross, eds.
Thomas N. Hall, Thomas D. Hill, and Charles D.
Wright. Medieval
European Studies I. West Virginia University Press, 2002. 138-57.
Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-Ambrose and Ambrosiaster. Old
English Newsletter, [Monograph] Subsidia 25. Kalamazoo, MI: The
Medieval
Institute for the Modern Language Association of America,
1997 (with
Jessica Wegmann and Charles D. Wright).
"Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-Ambrose and Ambrosiaster."
Website
under construction. (created by William Schipper and Larry Swain).
“Ambrose in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture,” Old
English Newsletter 27:1
(1993): 30-4 (with Jessica Wegmann).
“Ambrose” (with Jessica Wegmann and Charles D. Wright), “Coelestinus
I”
and “Capreolus of Carthage,” forthcoming in
Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary
Culture, eds. Frederick M. Biggs,
Thomas D. Hill, and Paul E. Szarmach.
Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval
Institute Publications.
Selected Recent Presentations:
“Is it a sword, a temple-curtain, or a veil? Teaching Chaucer through Footnotes,”
Roundtable on Teaching Chaucer, Medieval Association of the Midwest Session, 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2012.
“R.T. Hampson’s ‘Lost’ Transcript of Cotton Tiberius B.i,” International Medieval
Congress, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, July 2011.
“Bosworth’s Ladies: The Influence of Women on A Dictionary of the Anglo-
Saxon Language.” Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, November
2010, Roanoke, VA.
“Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C.887: An Unpublished Seventeenth-
Century
Anglo-Saxon Glossary by Nathaniel Spinckes,” Center for Medieval
Studies, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Early Medievalisms 1600-1800
session, The 45th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI,
May 2010.
“[S]omething like Mair’s Tyro’s Dictionary, with an Index”: Planning A
Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, XVIIth Biennial Meeting of the
Dictionary Society of North America, Indiana University, Bloomington, May
2009 [solicited].
“Channel Crossings: Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language
in the Netherlands, 1829-1840,” The Medieval Academy Session, 43rd
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University,
May 7-11, 2008.
“The Gentleman Philologist and Lexical Nationalism: The Making of Joseph
Bosworth’s 1838 A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language.”
Bibliographical
Society Lecture Series. University College London. December,
2006.
“Benjamin Thorpe’s Influence on Joseph Bosworth’s
A Dictionary of the Anglo-
Saxon Language.” Southeastern
Medieval Association Conference. University
of Mississippi,
October 2006.
“On Compiling A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language: Methodological
Evidence
For Crafting of Entries from the Bodlelain Library Manuscripts,” 41st
International Medieval Studies, Western Michigan Universith, May
2006 (Early
Book Society Sponsored Session).
“Bosworth’s Books: Evidence for the Compilation of
Joseph Bosworth’s Edition of
A Dictionary
of the Anglo-Saxon Language from the Bodleian Library Bequest,”
39th International
Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University,
May,
2004.
“An Uncaged Treasure: The History, Travels, and Provenance of
The Carrier Library
Copy of The Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,” Carrier
Library,
James Madison University, November 15, 2001.
“Strange Bedfellows: Thomas Northcote Toller, Joseph
Bosworth, John Dee, and
the Making of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
Supplement,” The British Library,
London, August 2001.
“Anglo-Saxon Conversion Narratives: Research Problems
and
Pedagogical
Opportunities,” The Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England:
Issues
in Teaching and Research, The University of Glamorgan: Christianity
and
the Humanities Project, University of Nottingham, Nottingham,
England,
January 2001.
“Secularizing the Word: Conversion and Gender in
Chaucer's Troilus and
Criseyde,” Sewanee Mediaeval Colloquium: Celebrating
Chaucer in 2000:
His World, His Work, His Legacy, The University
of the South, Sewanee, TN,
March 2000. Respondent: R.A.
Shoaf.
“Women's Experience of Conversion in Old Norse Literature,”
Modern
Language Association Convention, Toronto, December 1997.
“The Conversion Stories in Ælfric's Lives of Saints,” Symposium
on Irish and Anglo-
Saxon Literary Culture in Honor of J. E. Cross,
International Congress on
Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University,
May 1996.
“Beowulf, The Celts and the Critics,” Modern Language
Association Convention,
Chicago, December 1995. |
