University of California, Riverside: Department of English

Faculty

John M. Ganim, Professor
Ph.D. Indiana University

John M. Ganim (B.A. Rutgers; M.A., Ph.D. Indiana University) is the author of three books, Style and Consciousness in Middle English Narrative (1983), Chaucerian Theatricality (1990), both published by Princeton University Press and Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity (2005; paperbound edition 2008), published by Palgrave MacMillan. He served as President (2006-2008) of the New Chaucer Society. Previously, he has served as a Trustee of the New Chaucer Society and as chair of the Executive Committee of the Middle English Division of the Modern Language Association. He held a Guggenheim fellowship in 2001. At UCR, he has been department chair and graduate advisor. He is an International Associate, Network for Early European Research, sponsored by the University of Western Australia and the Australian Research Council and a PI on an Australian Research Council multi-year grant to study Australian Medievalisms. His recent seminars have covered a range of topics, including Cosmopolitanism in the Middle Ages,; Temporalities and Literature; Landscape, Urbanism and Space in Literature; as well as courses on Malory, Beowulf and Chaucer. His recent research covers how the Middle Ages is reimagined from century to century in aesthetic and political realms; how medieval literature and contemporary theory engage; and how the form of late medieval literature is shaped by its institutional contexts.

Some of his papers and articles have studied medieval culture and medievalist themes in subsequent centuries: "Chaucer and Free Love," Visions and Voices, Essays on Medieval Literature and Culture, ed. Robert Stein. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. 344-363, discussed the role of Chaucer in the private lives of Virginia Woolf and William Morris. "The Gothic After Modernism: Postmodern Medieval Architecture." Studies in Medievalism XXI. (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005). Pp. 35-46 uncovered unexpected medieval allusions in current architecture.

Another recent group of articles study the representation of the Middle Ages in film. These include "The Hero in the Classroom," in Time Bandits: Representations of the Medieval Hero in Film, ed. Martha Driver. New York: MacFarland, 2004. Pp. 237-249; . "Reversing the Crusades: Hegemony, Orientalism and Film Language in Chahine’s Saladin," Filming the Other Middle Ages: Race, Class, and Gender in Medievalist Cinema. Eds. Tison Pugh and Lynne Ramey. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave, 2007. Pp. 45-58; "Framing the West, Staging the East: Set Design, Location and Landscape in Cinematic Medievalism." In Hollywood in the Holy Land: The Fearful Symmetries of Movie Medievalism, eds. Nick Haydock and Edward Risden (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Publishers, Inc., 2008). Pp. 31-46; and "Medieval noir: anatomy of a metaphor." In Medieval Film. Eds Anke Bernau and Bettina Bildhauer. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Pp. 182-202.

A third group of articles represent his continuing interest in the articulation of literary and cultural theory and medieval literature. These include "Drama, Theatricality, and Performance: Radicals of Presentation in The Canterbury Tales," in Drama, Narrative and Poetry in the Canterbury Tales, ed. Wendy Harding Toulouse, France: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003. Pp. 69-82; "Identity and Subjecthood" in The Oxford Student’s Guide to Chaucer, ed. Steve Ellis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 224-238 and "Changes in Critical Responses and Approaches. " In The Medieval British Literature Handbook, ed. Daniel Kline (London: Continuum, 2009). Pp. 152-183.

A fourth group of articles continue his work on the relation of literary style and form to the cultures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These include "Landscape and Late Medieval Literature: A Critical Geography," Tennessee Studies in Literature 43 (2007): xv-xxix; "Lydgate, Location and the Poetics of Exemption," Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture in the Fifteenth Century. Eds. Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea Denny-Brown. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave, 2008. Pp. 165-184; "Chaucer and the War of the Maidens" in Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages Ed. Jeffrey Cohen. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave, 2008. Pp. 191-208 and "Gower, Liminality, and the Politics of Space," Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (19) 2007: 90-116. Recently he has delivered the Presidential Address of the New Chaucer Society in Swansea, Wales in July 2008; the Keynote address at the Australian and New Zealand Medieval and Early Modern Studies Society, Adelaide, Australia, February 10, 2007; the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Medieval Studies Program at the University of Texas, October 10, 2008, Austin, Texas; and the University Lecture in the series, "Populär, pittoresk, politisch? Das Mittelalter im Kino", Freie Universität, Berlin, July 7, 2009. Earlier invited lectures include the Annual Rossell Hope Robbins Lecture of the New York Medieval Club, the Fifth Annual Klaus Jankofsky Memorial Lecture, University of Minnesota, Duluth, and the Decherd Turner Bridwell Bibliophiles Lecture at Southern Methodist University, the Baillieu Library Annual Lecture, and the Keynote Address at the Conference on Once and Future Medievalisms, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Some articles may be available on-line, including "The Hero in the Classroom," in Martha Driver, ed., Time Bandits: Representations of the Medieval Hero on Film. New York: MacFarland, 2004. [http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/excerpts/0-7864-1926-1.Chapter14.pdf] ; "Identity and Subjecthood" in The Oxford Student’s Guide to Chaucer, ed. Steve Ellis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp.224-238. [ Oxford University Press http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-925912-7.pdf] and "A Belated Afterword to The Once and Future Medievalism," antiTHESIS. University of Melbourne Postgraduate Journal in English and Cultural Studies. Special Issue on The Once and Future Medievalism. On-Line. [http://www.english.unimelb.edu.au/antithesis/forum-3/12-JohnGanim.html].

PUBLICATIONS

Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity ( New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005).

INVITED LECTURES

Served as Visiting International Scholar and Visiting Arts Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in September, 2004.

Presented a lecture, "The Occult History of Britain," at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, September 15, 2004.

Delivered the keynote address at the conference on "Once and Future Medievalisms" at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on September 27, 2004.

Presented a lecture, "Library Architecture After Postmodernism," to at the annual dinner of the Friends of the Bailleu Library, Melbourne, Australia in September, 2004.

Delivered the Fifth Annual Klaus Jankofsky Memorial Lecture, University of Minnesota, Duluth in April, 2005

Delivered the Decherd Turner Bridwell Bibliophiles Lecture at Southern Methodist University in January, 2006.

OTHER

International Associate, Network for Early European Research, sponsored by the University of Western Australia and the Australian Research Council.

Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim, Jr. Memorial Foundation in 2001-2002.

President, New Chaucer Society, 2005-2008.