Undergraduate

Medieval literature, especially late medieval English literature; religious narratives, especially saints’ lives and miracle stories; Early English literature and canonicity; pedagogy, especially the teaching of composition and at-risk or non-traditional students.

Social class in the U.S. (especially the relationship between social class and higher education)

College:

I earned my bachelor’s degree at a small school then called the College of Saint Francis (the name has now changed to the University of Saint Francis) in my hometown of Joliet, Illinois. This school was 20 minutes from home and 10 minutes from the tavern my grandparents owned and operated, the factory my dad worked in, and the beauty shop where my mom cut hair.  I went on to get a master’s degree at DePaul University in Chicago and then a PhD at Indiana University Bloomington.   I unapologetically bleed cream and crimson even here in Ann Arbor. 

Areas of interest/specialization: 

I am by training a medievalist and specialize in late medieval English literature; I’m especially excited about Middle English religious narratives, such as saints’ lives and miracle stories.  I’m interested in pedagogy and early English literature and care more than is probably healthy for me about issues of canonicity. I am proud to be an academic from a working-class background and enjoy studying depictions of and writing by blue-collar workers or their equivalents in other eras (especially, obviously, the Middle Ages).  I also have much experience with and great dedication to teaching composition to at-risk and non-traditional students.

What was your major in Undgrad/Grad school? 

In college, I was an English major and philosophy minor; for my MA I concentrated on English literature, and my PhD is in English literature with a certificate in medieval studies.

What is the one thing you wish you could have changed about your undergrad career?

I should probably say here that I wish I would have studied Latin more seriously as an undergraduate—it is such an important language for scholars of the medieval west—but if I had, I likely would have been decent enough at Latin that I need not have organized, in grad school, the Latin study group where I met my partner Ellen.  So I’m actually really very grateful I was such a lousy student of Latin as an undergrad!

What was your favorite class in college? 

Honestly, I can’t think of any one in particular, but I can say that from the moment I started college, I felt like I found “my place.”  I was an okay student in high school, but not great, in part, I think, because teachers didn’t take much of an interest in me—it’s pretty clear to me now that they didn’t see me as “college material.”  I still harbor resentment that when I worked up the courage to ask to be on the school newspaper, they told me no.  College felt so different from high school right away!  When I showed interest in ideas or opportunities there, people responded positively to me; when I raised my hand to talk, people listened.  There was a sense of community in every class, and I felt like part of something important.  I am not surprised that I have never really left the college classroom since then—I’m still here!

What was your favorite book in college? 

I loved (and still do) the Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor; I wrote my senior thesis on a great but underappreciated story called “A View of the Woods.”  I had a serious attachment to O’Connor in college—I even made a pilgrimage to Flannery O’Connor’s grave.  Students may visit my office if they wish to hold the jar of grave dirt I harvested while there.

Did you have a favorite professor in college? If so, what did he/she do that made them stick out to you? 

Randy Chilton was my American literature professor; I had him for several courses and he was a wonderful teacher no matter what we were studying, but he won my admiration and respect in a course in which we were studying TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. We had spent several sessions on it and Randy’s lessons were fantastic.  I still have the notes, and if I ever teach The Waste Land, I’ll use them.  But I remember on the last day we had scheduled to talk about it, we students had the big picture but struggled to fit all the stray bits into it.  We besieged Randy with what I know now are probably unanswerable, or at least really nit-picky, questions—“how does this phrase contribute?”; “but what did he mean by this?!” and “why is this detail important?”  Randy gamely and patiently handled these questions for while, then finally said, “We have to be done!  I have taught you everything I know about this poem!”  I really admired that—it was the first time I realized that texts are more than just the sum total of their parts, that not every bit can be rationally explained, and that if all the bits could be, that would be kind of boring.  I also respected Randy’s willingness to be okay with not having all the answers; sometimes, even when you’re the teacher, you just don’t, and that’s actually a sign of how well you know a text.  Students who have studied Piers Plowman with me have seen something of what I learned from Randy and The Waste Land in my approach to teaching Langland’s poem.

What are you working on right now?

I am in the midst of co-editing with Nate Smith, my friend and colleague who teaches at Central Michigan University, an issue of the journal Pedagogy.  The issue, titled “Teaching Medieval Literature Off the Grid,” includes ten or so articles by some great teachers who discuss a variety of pedagogical approaches and strategies for including non-canonical medieval literary texts in the classroom.  This has been a very big but very rewarding project, and I look very forward to the issue’s publication in Spring 2013.
For another project, I am exploring an interesting connection I’ve noticed between the character Piers Plowman and comics superheroes like Captain America and Superman.  Students in my ENG450 course this term will get a sneak peek at this!

What are you reading right now?

I just finished reading for the first time The Monk by Matthew Lewis, which I absolutely loved.  Students in future version of my ENG290 Ghosts, Monsters, Devils course will all read this book and meet the horrifying Bleeding Nun!

Did you have any interesting jobs during and after college that were outside of academia? 

I had so many fun jobs while I was in college!  Here are just a few of my favorites:  One summer, I worked in a hot dog factory packaging hot dogs; the work space was a gigantic cooler and I got to drive an automated fork lift around.  Another summer, I worked on a maintenance painting crew on campus, painting dorms and stairways.  For a very short time, I had a great-paying job loading trucks at UPS, but I had to be on the job at 4 a.m., and I just could not manage it while going to school, so I had to quit.  For most of my college career (and also while I earned my master’s degree), I worked a job split between doing prep work and dishwashing in an industrial kitchen and being part of a night shift janitorial crew.  I loved this job; it’s been 15 years since I had to quit it to move to grad school in Indiana, and I still have dreams in which I am calling my boss to make sure they are putting me on the weekly schedule. 

What would your best advice be for undergraduates trying to figure out what they want to do after graduation?

Talk to as many people as you can, as early as you can, about career options, and keep talking to them! Like many students I meet who are interested in analyzing texts and writing, when I was in my early years of college, I thought I would go on to be a lawyer or a journalist.  I realize now that this is because these were just among the very few job possibilities I knew about that focused on working with words; I had no idea what other options were even available. 

Fall 2012 Classes:
WRITING100 Transition to College Writing

ENG298 Introduction to Literary Studies

Office Hours: Thu 10-11am, Fri 9:30-10:30am  (1322 NQ)

Winter 2013 Classes:
ENG290 Ghosts, Monster, Devils
ENG315 Medieval Women on the Pedestal and in the Gutter

Brandolino, Gina ; Mendoza , Victor ; Schoenfeldt, Michael