Ian Cornelius
physical address:
Crown Center for the Humanities
1001 W. Loyola Ave.
Room 447
mailing address:
Department of English
Crown Center for the Humanities
1032 W. Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60660
office phone:
email:
website:
773.508.2784
[email protected]
http://www.iancornelius.com
Employment
Loyola University Chicago, Department of English
Edward Surtz, S.J. Professor in Medieval Literature and Culture, August 2016Yale University, Department of English
Assistant Professor, July 2009-June 2016
Education
University of Pennsylvania. Ph.D. in English, May 2009.
Non-degree research student at King's College, University of London, 2006/7.
Washington University in St. Louis. B.A. in English, summa cum laude, May 2002.
Study at Keble College, Oxford University, 2000/1.
Publications Forthcoming
Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter. The formal practice of
alliterative poets escaped the grasp of medieval literary theory; theorists are still playing
catch-up today. This book explains the distinctive nature of alliterative meter, explores its
differences from subsequent accentual-syllabic verse, and offers a reformed understanding of
medieval English literary history. 90,000 words, to appear from Cambridge University Press
in 2017.
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“Grammars and Rhetorics.” Entry for the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of British Medieval
Literature. A survey of the foundational disciplines of literate culture in the British Isles,
from the failure of the Roman imperial project in the fifth century to Henry VIII's
promulgation of uniform Latin grammars in 1540-42. 7,000 words; forthcoming December
2016.
“Versification.” Commissioned chapter, for Approaches to Teaching Piers Plowman, ed. Thomas
Goodmann. A plan for teaching the metrical form of late Middle English alliterative verse in
an advanced undergraduate classroom. 3,000 words; approved for publication by MLA.
“Meter matters: Middle English Lyrics in Sermons and in IMEV.” Book chapter, for What Kind
of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric?, ed. by Cristina Maria Cervone and Nicholas Watson.
Metrical analysis supplies a robust literary context for short-form verse whose literariness
can appear tenuous in other respects. 10,000 words; in preparation.
Publications
“Boethius’ Consolatio philosophiae.” The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English
Literature, vol. 1: The Middle Ages, ed. Rita Copeland. Pp. 269-98. A narrative history of the
reception of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy in Old and Middle English, with
contextualizing discussion of medieval Latin and French traditions of this work.
“The Accentual Paradigm in Early English Metrics.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology
114.4 (October 2015): 459-81. An essay in the history of knowledge, tracing the nineteenthcentury emergence and subsequent consolidation of the thesis that Old English poetry was
accentual, or “strong stress.”
“Gower and the Peasants’ Revolt.” Representations 131 (Summer 2015): 22-51. A study of John
Gower's poem on the Rising of 1381, situating the poem within three contrastive fields:
Gower's moral project, his Virgilian intertext, and the practices of moral community
employed by the rebels of 1381.
“Passus secundus de Dobest: On the Genesis of a Rubric in the Archetype of Piers Plowman B.”
Medium Ævum 84.1 (2015): 1-15. An essay on the textual transmission of section headings
in the B and C Versions of Piers Plowman, arguing that the final two sections of the poem
indeed originated in the B Version.
“Alliterative Revival: Retrospect and Prospect.” Review Essay. Yearbook of Langland Studies 26
(2012): 261-276. A literature review and reassessment of the twentieth-century scholarship
on Middle English alliterative verse; mapping of unanswered questions in current
scholarship.
“The Rhetoric of Advancement: Ars dictaminis, Cursus, and Clerical Careerism in Late
Medieval England.” New Medieval Literatures 12 (2010): 289-330. An essay in Bourdieusian
cultural studies, on the teaching of rhetoric in late medieval England.
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Books Reviewed
Juliet Barker, 1381: The Year of the Peasants’ Revolt (2014). Yearbook of Langland Studies,
forthcoming 2017.
A.V.C. Schmidt, ed. Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions, 3
vols. (2011). Medium Ævum 83.2 (2014): 353-54.
James Morey, ed. The Prik of Conscience (2012). Journal of English and Germanic Philology,
113.3 (2014): 400-3.
Michael Calabrese and Stephen H. A. Shepherd, eds. Yee? Baw for Bokes: Essays on Medieval
Manuscripts and Poetics in Honor of Hoyt N. Duggan (2013). Yearbook of Langland Studies
27 (2013): 116-21.
Randy Shiff. Revivalist Fantasy (2011). Yearbook of Langland Studies 26 (2012): 261-276. [as
above]
Presentations
[“Aesthetics of Metrical Form: The Case of Middle English Lyric.” Paper presentation. 52th
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2017.]
["Piers Plowman and Langland Studies: Where Are We Now?" Roundtable participant. 52th
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2017.]
[“Meter Matters.” Radcliffe Institute seminar on Middle English lyric. 1 December 2016.
Discussion of a pre-circulated essay draft.]
Respondent to Ted Underwood, “Genealogies of Distance.” Instant History: The Postwar
Digital Humanities and their Legacies. Loyola University Chicago, 24 September 2016.
“Bilingual form: the case of the Old English macaronic poems.” Medieval Academy of America
Annual Meeting. Boston, MA, 27 February 2016. A study of metrical phonology in the
mixed-language (Latin-English) portions of The Phoenix and The Rewards of Piety. Paper
presentation. A version was presented at the Modern Language Association Annual
Convention in Austin, TX, 7 January 2016.
“Who Killed Alliterative Verse?” Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, 3 February
2016. Discussion and contextualization of sixteenth-century Scots poetry on the trailing edge
of the English alliterative tradition. Previous versions were presented as invited lectures at
Loyola University Chicago (1 February 2016) and the University of Notre Dame (26
January, 2016); and at Yale’s Renaissance Lunch Colloquium (7 December 2015).
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“The Accentual Paradigm in English metrics: Or, why we don't talk more about quantity.”
Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Austin, TX, 8 January 2016. Presented at
a roundtable on “Quantity in English Verse: Linguistic and Neuroscience-Based Challenges
to the Accentual Paradigm.”
“Verse Design in the English Alliterative Tradition.” Invited lecture, Heinrich Heine Universität
Düsseldorf, 20 November 2015. Re-conception of historical “continuity,” with reference to
Roman Jakobson’s notion of prosodic indeterminacy.
“Old English Meter.” Guest presentation for the graduate seminar “Old English and Its
Afterlives” at the University of Pennsylvania; 21 October 2015. Discussion of the conceptual
challenges and historical significance of this meter, with exploratory scansions.
“What is Middle English Alliterative Verse?” Pre-circulated paper; the Medieval Colloquium at
Yale English, 15 October 2015. I describe the historical and epistemological framing of this
question and offer a provisional answer.
“What Kind of Thing is a Middle English Lyric?” An Exploratory Seminar at the Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study, 25-26 September 2015. Invited participant. I contributed a
study of the English verses of Fasciculus Morum and a paper on metrical analysis of Middle
English.
“The Electronic Archive and the Meter of Piers Plowman B” Sixth International Conference on
Piers Plowman, Seattle, July 2015. A study of the prosody of thanne (adv. & conj.) in the B
archetype and witnesses to it. I argue that Langland's versification is more precise than we
have recognized; his scribes understood his meter better than we have.
“The Metrical Style of Pierce the Ploughman's Crede.” 50th International Congress on Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 16 May 2015. A comparative study in metrical style, situating this
poem within the longue durée of English alliterative verse.
“Gower's Ethics.” Pre-circulated paper, for discussion with the Theory and Media Studies
Colloquium at Yale English, 15 January 2015. I identify a general mode of ethical textuality
and indicate what I take from Foucault's studies of ancient ethical practice.
“The text of Piers Plowman in Takamiya MS 23.” Paper read at a semester-end mini-conference
for my graduate seminar on Piers Plowman. 11 December 2014. I place this manuscript
within the textual tradition of Piers Plowman B and illustrate the scribe's alterations to his
received text.
“The Lay Folks' Catechism and the Question of Mimetic Style.” New England Medieval
Conference, Middlebury College, 8 November 2014. A stylistic study, examining a midfourteenth-century text with disputed affiliations to Middle English alliterative verse. Based
on the text of Bodleian Library, MS Don. c. 13.
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“How alliterative verse got its name, and why it matters.” Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer
Society, Reykjavík, Iceland, July 2014. An exercise in disciplinary history, showing that early
Germanic poetry was christened “alliterative” during a period of epistemic confusion in the
eighteenth century, and arguing that the name remains unfortunate.
“Langland's Latin B-verses.” 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI,
May 2014. A study of the metrical behavior of Latin words and phrases in the mixedlanguage lines of Piers Plowman B.
“Choosing the vernacular in medieval England.” Paper presentation at Anglophone Histories, a
one-day internal conference organized by Yale English, 18 April 2014. Discussion of Sheldon
Pollock’s comparative study of premodern vernacularization, in the context of Malcolm
Godden’s disaggregation of the Old English works traditionally attributed to King Alfred.
“The Search for Latin Rhythms in Middle English Prose.” Annual Meeting of the American
Comparative Literature Association, New York, March 2014. A review of methodological
problems involved in the study of prose rhythm in Middle English. Focus on A Talkyng of the
Loue of God.
“What’s the Object? The Siege of Jerusalem and the Notion of 'Context.'” Northeast Modern
Language Association, Boston, 22 March 2013. Reflections on relations between manuscript
study and literary interpretation. Roundtable presentation.
“A Reply to Macklin Smith about Langland’s Caesura.” Paper read at a semester-end miniconference my graduate seminar on Piers Plowman. 14 December 2012. Reaffirmation that
Langland's practice of hemistich composition is consistent with that of other fourteenthcentury alliterative poets.
“Humanities and Political Action: Occupy Boston.” 2nd Biennial meeting of the BABEL
Working Group, Boston, 22 September 2012. Reflections on my experience in the collective
that produced the Boston Occupier newspaper. Roundtable presentation.
“The Canon in the Classroom.” 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo,
MI, 12 May 2012. On teaching Chaucer in a variety of courses at Yale. Roundtable
presentation.
“Classical Rhetoric and the Perception of Alliterative Verse.” Medieval Academy of America
Annual Meeting, St. Louis University, 23 March 2012. An exposition of the Latin
grammatical and rhetorical terminology that Gerald of Wales and Óláfr Þórðarson used when
they described alliterative verse's alliteration.
“John Gower's Utopian Vision: Popular Uprising in Medieval England.” Washington University
in St. Louis, 27 October 2011. A reading of Gower's Visio Anglie against the grain, arguing
that the poem expresses a utopian possibility otherwise unthinkable: the collective agency of
the dominated. Invited lecture.
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“Latin Rhetoric and the Alliterative Tradition.” Medieval Writing Workshop, Columbia
University, 8 October 2011.
“Scribal habitus and usus scribendi: or, observations on an alliterative formula.” Fifth
International Conference on Piers Plowman, Oxford, 16 May 2011. A study of the formula
“clerkes woet þe sothe” (and variants) in Piers Plowman and affiliated works.
“Factors Contributing to Language Choice in Late Medieval England.” Paper read at a semesterend mini-conference for my graduate seminar “Trilingual England,” 7 December 2010. An
exercise in abstraction, presenting six general factors to which one might appeal in answering
the question, “Why was text X written in language Y?”
“Alliterative Poetry and the Cursus: Reconsideration.” Medieval Writing Workshop, Columbia
University, 9 October 2010.
“The Rhetoric of Advancement: Ars dictaminis, Cursus, and the Field of Education in LateMedieval England.” Yale Medieval-Renaissance Colloquium, 1 October 2010. Pre-circulated
paper.
“Middle English Alliterative Verse and the Latin Schools.” University of Pennsylvania
Medieval-Renaissance Seminar, April 2008. Pre-circulated paper.
“The Latin Origins of Middle English Alliterative Poetry.” University of Pennsylvania
Humanities Forum Graduate Conference on “Origins,” 28 February 2008. Conference Paper.
“Alliterative Poetry's Latin Learning.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention,
Chicago, December 2007. Conference paper.
“The Latin cursus and Middle English Alliterative Verse.” Fourth International Conference on
Piers Plowman, Philadelphia, May 2007. Conference paper.
Conference Sessions Organized
“Metrical Form.” Sixth International Piers Plowman Conference, Seattle, 23-26 July 2015.
Papers on metrical variation in the manuscripts of Piers Plowman; metrical phonology and
metrical typology in the English alliterative tradition; and comparison of alliterative and
“Chaucerian” meters.
“Langland's Words.” Paper session. 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 2015.
Studies in the vocabulary of Piers Plowman. Jointly organized with Emily Steiner (Penn).
“Medieval Governmentalities.” Roundtable. Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society,
Reykjavík, Iceland, July 2014. Discussion of late medieval practices of governynge, taking
that Middle English word in its full range of secular, spiritual, technical and moral meanings.
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“Langland's Line.” Paper session. 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 2014.
Studies on the meter of Piers Plowman B.
“Piers Plowman and the Rich.” Paper session. 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies,
May 2014. Studies on the poem's imbrication within contemporary problems of wealth, class,
and government.
“Translated Prosody.” Paper sessions. American Comparative Literature Association, New York,
March 2014. Studies in multilingual prosody, ancient to modern. Organized jointly with Ben
Glaser (Yale).
“Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy in Medieval and Early Modern England: Form and
History.” Paper session. Modern Language Association, Chicago, January 2014. Papers on
Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern reception of the Consolatio.
“The History of Ethics: Continuations of Foucault's Final Project.” Paper session. 48th
International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 2013. Studies of some medieval systems
and practices of ethics, with critical reflection on the meaning Foucault gave to that term.
“Alliterative Poetry’s Latin Backgrounds.” Paper session. Fourth International Conference on
Piers Plowman, Philadelphia, May 2007. Some explorations of (in David Lawton's words)
alliterative poetry’s “clerkly, literate, and essentially bookish” character.
Teaching
Undergraduate (Loyola)
UCLR 100. “Interpreting Literature: Poetry, Fiction, Drama.” Fall 2016. An introduction to
literary study. Readings from James Baldwin, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Keats, Thomas
Malory, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Amy Tan, among many
others.
Undergraduate (Yale)
ENGL 114. “Composition Seminar: You Must Change Your Life.” Spring 10, S11, S13, S14,
S15. Key readings are the Socratic dialogue Alcibiades, Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon,
and selections from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish.
ENGL 125. “Major English Poets I.” Fall 09, F10, F12, F13, F15. A study of selected works
of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Donne, with special attention to language and
form.
ENGL 130. “Epic.” S15, S16. The European epic tradition traced from ancient the Odyssey to
Ulysses.
ENGL 158. “Readings in Middle English.” S10, S14, F15. A survey, exploring what English
literature was before Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and in the decades immediately
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following. Readings from A Book of Middle English, plus Piers Plowman, The Book of
John Mandeville, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes, and The Book of Margery Kempe.
ENGL 169. “Chaucer and Desire.” S11. A study of Chaucer's poetry, framed by readings on
courtly love and the concept of desire.
ENGL 172. “Literary Approaches to the Past.” F13. A study of medieval and post-medieval
literature about the distant past. Designed and taught jointly with Eric Weiskott, under the
auspices of the Graduate School's Associates in Teaching Program.
ENGL 402. “Alliterative Poetry in Middle English.” S13, F14. A reading of Late Middle
English poems in alliterative verse, including St. Erkenwald, Patience, Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, and selections from Piers Plowman.
Special Term Course. “Piers Plowman and Social History.” F13. A directed study, offered for
one of my students from ENGL 402.
Undergraduate (Penn)
English 294.920. “Introduction to Literary Theory.” Summer 08. A survey, ancient to
modern.
Graduate (Yale)
ENGL 534. “Piers Plowman.” F12, F14. A sequential reading of Piers Plowman in the
poem's A and C Versions. Simultaneously, study of the poem’s form and languages;
place in literary history; genetic development; manuscript and early print circulation;
discursive modes; and its thought on such topics as law, gender, political economy,
theology, education, and the church.
ENGL 549. “Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and its Afterlife.” S16. A study of the
commentary tradition, major translations, adaptations, and associated literary works, with
an emphasis on medieval and early modern England. Textual history, translation, literary
form and moral philosophy.
ENGL 567. “Trilingual England.” F10. A survey of Late Middle English literature, focalized
around issues of language choice and language contact.
Institutional and Professional Service
Service (Yale)
Department of English: committee assignments
Aims and Procedures (2012/13, 13/14, 14/15, 15/16). Advisory committee regarding matters
of department business not covered by other committees.
Faculty Convener, Medieval Colloquium (2012/13, 13/14, 14/15, 15/16). Coordinate with the
graduate conveners to set and carry out the seminar's schedule; 8-10 events per year, most
featuring a pre-circulated paper from an external speaker.
Honors and Prizes (2009/10, 14/15, 15/16). Evaluation of submissions to the department's
undergraduate prize competitions.
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Graduate Admissions (2009/10, 14/15, 15/16). First or second-round reader for graduate
applications.
Graduate Studies (2010/11, 12/13, 13/14). Graduate admissions (final round); reading of
dissertation prospectuses.
Diversity Recruitment Coordinator (2012/13). Liaison with the Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity; second reader for all
applications from under-represented minorities.
Lectures and Colloquia (2012/13, 13/14, 14/15, 15/16). Advisory committee regarding
selection of speakers for departmental lectures; representative of the Medieval
Colloquium.
Review of English 125 and 126 (Fall 2010). Reassessment of the content and structure of the
department's gateway course sequence.
Search Committee for ENGL 114/115 Writing Seminar Lectors (Spring 2011). Read
applications and interviewed candidates for two non-ladder positions.
Yale College
Committee on Honors and Academic Standing (2012/13, 13/14, 14/15). Interpret and apply
the academic regulations of Yale College; administer General Honors and Distinction in
the Major; review proposals for Special Term Courses.
Graduate School
Associates in Teaching Program (Fall 2013). Collaborated with a graduate student to plan
and jointly teach an upper-division undergraduate course.
Search Committee for English Language Lectors at the Yale Center for Language Study
(Spring 2010). Read applications and interviewed candidates for two non-ladder
positions, responsible for ESL teaching and assessment in the Graduate School.
Review Committee for English Language Lectors at the Yale Center for Language Study
(Spring 2011; Spring 2013; Spring 2014)
Conference planning
2010 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America. Chair, Local Arrangements
Committee. Worked with Yale Conference Services and members of the Local
Arrangements Committee to set the non-academic program, prepare the printed and online conference programs, manage the budget and hotel blocks, and coordinate with
catering and facilities. Approx. 8 hours per week between October '09 and March '10. The
conference had 500 registered participants and a budget of almost $100,000.
Anglophone Histories. A cross-period colloquium held by the Department of English on 18
April 2014, exploring our collective stake in the cultural history of the English language.
I participated in planning and as a speaker.
Foucault: After 1984. A conference held at Yale, 17-18 October 2014, focusing on the
posthumous publications, especially the Collège de France lectures.
Service to Professional Associations
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Medieval Academy of America. Chair, Local Arrangements Committee, 2010 Annual
Meeting (see above, Yale University: Conference Planning)
International Piers Plowman Society.
Session organizer for sponsored sessions at the 49th and 50th International Congresses on
Medieval Studies (see above, Conference Sessions Organized).
New England Medieval Conference. Steering committee member, 2013-2015.
Awards and Fellowships
Whitney Humanities Center Fellow, Yale University, 2015/16
Morse Fellowship, Yale University, supporting one year of research leave, 2011/12
Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2008/9 (awarded 2003)
Penn-in-London Fellowship for study at King's College, London, 2006/7
Dolores Zohrad Liebmann Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2004/6, 2007/8
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, 2003/4
Phi Beta Kappa, inducted May 2002
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