Jonathan Hsy
Title — Assistant Professor of English
Office — Rome Hall, Room 762
Phone — (202) 994-0943
E-mail — jhsy@gwu.edu
Current Research
Medieval Literature, Chaucer, Material Culture, Sociolinguistics Polyglot Poetics: Merchants, Multilingualism, and Urban Writing, 1340-1540. (book manuscript in progress).
Education
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
B.A., M.A., Stanford University
Background
Jonathan Hsy specializes in late medieval literature, and his research and teaching interests include Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and their contemporaries; medieval romance; sociolinguistics; and material culture. His current research investigates multilingualism and commerce in medieval England and France, but his interests extend into later fields and periods, including early print culture, postcolonial theory, and the history of the English language. He is currently working on a book on merchants and literature in premodern London.
Publications
“Lingua Franca: Overseas Travel and Language Contact in The Book of Margery Kempe.” In The Sea and Medieval English Identity, ed. Sebastian I. Sobecki (Cambridge: Brewer, forthcoming 2011).
“At Home and in the ‘Countour-Hous’: Chaucer’s Polyglot Dwellings.” In The Oxford Handbook to Chaucer, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2011).
“‘Oure Occian’: Littoral Language and the Constance Narratives of Chaucer and Boccaccio.” In Europe and Its Others: Mediterranean Interperceptions, eds. Paul Gifford and Tessa Hauswedell (New York: Peter Lang, 2010).
“Translation, Suspended: Literary Code-Switching and Poetry of Sea Travel.” In The Medieval Translator/Traduire au Moyen Âge, Vol. 12, eds. Denis Renevey and Christiania Whitehead (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009). pp. 133-145.
“Sound and the Written Song in Chaucer and Machaut: A Collaborative Approach.” Co-authored with Jennifer Saltzstein (Music, University of Oklahoma). In Etymologies of Medieval Song, eds. Kevin Brownlee and Emma Dillon (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, forthcoming).
“‘Be more strange and bold’: Kissing Lepers and Female Same-Sex Desire in The Book of Margery Kempe.” In Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal (for special forum, “Sex and the Early Modern Woman: Representation, Practice, and Culture”), Vol. 5 (Fall 2010), forthcoming.
“The City: Medieval Theory and Practice.” In The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory: Middle English, ed. Marion Turner (Blackwell).
Honors:
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend, 2010.
Short-Term Research Fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, Fall 2010.
Related Links
My Website