Dr. Jessica Barr
Associate
Professor of English &
Director of the Honors Program at
Eureka
College
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Current courses: |
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ENG330W Seminar in British Literature: The Legends of King Arthur |
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The legends of King Arthur have been favorite stories for
years—more than a thousand years, in fact. But those legends have
changed dramatically from one retelling to the next, and they continue to
change as modern authors and filmmakers rework the stories to a variety of
ends and through a variety of lenses. In this course, we will explore the
shifting shape of the Arthurian cycle from the early Middle Ages to the
twenty-first century, considering how (and why) Arthur has infiltrated the
popular imagination.
A survey of British
literature from the late 18th century to the present. The course
covers the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods, and closes with
contemporary literature. |
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Office hours (Spring
2013): Tuesday 2-4, Wednesday 2-3, Friday 11-12, and by appointment. My office is located in Burrus Dickinson 301. |
ENG301W
Advanced Academic Writing and Research This
course is meant to help students understand the demands, conventions, and
values of writing in their particular fields. The focus of the course is the
production of a substantial research paper that accords with the standards of
the student’s major discipline and that explores a topic of interest to
the student. |
Additional resources for British Literature II:
- ENG233: Handout on
Taking Notes for a Literature Class, Romanticism
PowerPoint, Byron PowerPoint, Victorian Age PowerPoint
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Essential handouts for Honors students:
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Recent courses:
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Chaucer resources (for ENG231):
- Helpful resources:
Middle English Dictionary
online, Guide to Online
Resources, Middle
English Teaching Resources (Chaucer section)
- Fun resources: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, Japes for Owre Times, Bestiaries
I
teach British and European Literature; my usual courses include the British Literature surveys and seminars in British,
European, and Classical Literature. In the past, I’ve taught seminars on
Gender and the Body in the Middle Ages, Feminism and Literature, and “The
Poetics of Inspiration,” a course in which we explored writing that
claimed to be inspired by everything from God to opium.
My research focuses on medieval literature, particularly mystical and vision literature of the later Middle Ages. I am especially interested in women’s writing from the medieval period, visionary and mystical literature, and dream vision poetry. My publications include an article on the thirteenth-century mystic Beatrice of Nazareth in issue 23.3 (2011) of Exemplaria, an exploration of the role of the creative imagination in medieval visions of the Otherworld appeared in the March 2011 issue of Connotations: A Journal of Literary Debate, and an article on the creation of narrative personae in medieval English mystical texts (forthcoming in Sanctity and Literature, University of Manchester Press). My book, Willing to Know God: Dreamers and Visionaries in the Later Middle Ages, was published in September 2010 by Ohio State University Press. My other publications include “The Meaning of the Word: Language and Understanding in Marguerite d’Oingt” (Mystics Quarterly March/June 2007, and I co-author the chapter on Geoffrey Chaucer for Oxford University Press’s annual Year’s Work in English Studies.
I earned a B.A. in English with a creative writing concentration at Oberlin College in 1997, and my M.A. (2003) and Ph.D. (2007) in Comparative Literature at Brown University. In the fall of 2007, I joined Eureka’s faculty where, in addition to directing Eureka’s Honors program, I am the faculty advisor for the Theta Lambda chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society.
Off-campus, I enjoy fiction of all kinds (both reading and writing it), yoga, cooking, knitting, book-binding, and travel. Recently I spent a month in France and a week reading medieval manuscripts in Belgium, but in the last few years I’ve traveled as far as Cambodia and China.
Contact information:
Eureka College
300 East College Avenue
Eureka, Illinois 61530
(309) 467-6337