Gossip: benchend, St Andrew's, Cheddar (Somerset)
Professor of English
Department of English
University of Pennsylvania
email: dwallace@english.upenn.edu
David Wallace is Judith Rodin Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania. He was Chair of English 2001-4 and Interim Chair of Romance Languages, 2005-6, but has returned to civilian life. He served as President of the New Chaucer Society from 2004-6; he is rumored to be the Chaucer blogger. In Spring 2007 he was Visiting Professor, University of Merlbourne; in spring 2008 he will be Bain-Swiggett Professor of Poetry at Princeton. In April 2007 he was awarded the Ira Abrams Award for Distinguished Teaching at Penn: http://www.college.upenn.edu/honors/teaching/07.php
David is a medievalist who looks forward to the early modern period; he works on English and Italian matters (and is a member of the Center for Italian Studies) with additional interests in French, German, eastern Europe, women's writing, romance, "discovery" of the Americas and the history of slavery.
David is currently making a documentary on Malory for BBC Radio 3, featuring location work at Manchester (John Rylands Library), Towton, Winchester, the Queen's Robing Room at the House of Lords, Newgate prison, Mercer's Hall, the College of Arms and the British Library. Readings from the Morte Darthur are by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion; further readings by Geoffrey Hill. The program airs at 9.30 on Sunday, 26 August; it may be heard for one week thereafter at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/.
In October 2007 David will give the Clarendon Lectures in English at Oxford:
Strong Women: Life, Text, and Territory 1347-1645
With Jennifer Summit (Stanford) he has co-edited JMEMS 37.3 (Fall 2007), "Medieval/ Renaissance: After Periodization": http://medren.aas.duke.edu/jmems/articlesIndex.php?id=45; related conferences took place at Stanford (27 October 2006) and Philadelphia (11 November 2006).
Recent publications: "Periodizing Women: Mary Ward (1585-1645) and the Premodern Canon," JMEMS 36.2; Premodern Places (2004; pb 2006); The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing (ed. with Carolyn Dinshaw, 2003), and The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (ed. 1999, 2002). Radio work includes "The Miraculous Journey of Margery Kempe" (BBC Radio 3, 18 September 2005, with Prunella Scales) and "God's First Englishman" (BBC Radio 3, April 2003, with Kevin Whateley as Bede).
To find out more about his interests and his work, see the links below.