Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Caroline Batten

Assistant Professor of English

(they/them/theirs)

Fisher-Bennett Hall 213
215-898-9526

Office Hours

fall 2024

By appointment

Caroline (Caz) Batten is Assistant Professor of Medieval English Literature and core faculty in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. A scholar of Old English and Old Norse language and literature, their research interests include gender and sexuality, sickness and health, the history of medicine, and somatic emotions in medieval texts. Their monograph in progress, Vulnerable Bodies: Verse Charms and the Old English Poetics of Integrity, explores the verse, content, and rich cultural context of twelve protective magical incantations copied in English medical and religious manuscripts in the tenth and eleventh centuries. They are also the author of Health and the Body in Early Medieval England (Cambridge Elements, CUP, forthcoming 2024), an introduction to early medieval English medical practice and conceptions of the body.

Their research has appeared in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Review of English Studies, Medium Ævum, Scandinavian Studies, Emotions: History, Culture, Society, and Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, among others, and in edited collections including, most recently, Early Medieval Life Courses: Cultural-Historical Perspectives (Brill, 2022) and Tradition and Innovation in Old English Metre (AUP, 2022). They are currently an editor of the journal New Medieval Literatures, and coeditor, with Gareth Lloyd Evans, of a special issue of English Studies, 'Deconstructing Masculinities in Old English Literature' (104:5, forthcoming 2024).

They received their BA from Swarthmore College and their M.Phil and D.Phil from the University of Oxford. Prior to joining Penn English, they were a RANNÍS Icelandic Research Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Iceland and Stipendiary Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at the University of Oxford.

Courses Taught

fall 2024

ENGL 2315.401 Saints and Sex Demons  

spring 2024

ENGL 0391.301 Dark Academia  

fall 2023

ENGL 2315.401 Saints and Sex Demons  
ENGL 5240.401 Premodern Monstrosities  

spring 2023

fall 2022