
Christopher M. Roman
Biography
Dr. Christopher Michael Roman is professor of English and the Graduate Studies coordinator. He offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses, including early British literature, LGBTQ+ Literature, J.R.R Tolkien, comic book studies, queer studies and the Middle Ages. His various publications, lectures and presentations investigate the entangled themes of queer theory and queer theology in medieval vernacular religion, gender and sexuality in the life of anchorites and hermits, animal studies and ecology in medieval poetry, queer theory and the comic book, and the emergent field of sound studies. His first book, Domestic Mysticism in Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (2005), interrogates queer family formation in medieval mystical texts. His book, Queering Richard Rolle (2017), investigates the queer identity of the understudied and important medieval hermit, Richard Rolle. His new work investigates the use of sound in the imagined places of medieval literature. As well, he is working on new projects involving queer theory and the superhero, Wolverine, and sound studies as they pertain to the comic book Daredevil. His forthcoming collection, Medieval Futurity: Essays for the Future of a Queer Medieval Studies (2020), explores new theoretical directions for queer identity in the Middle Ages. He is the recipient of a Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Visiting Research Fellowship and an Erika and Kenneth Riley Fellowship at the Huntington Library in California for work on a new edition of Richard Rolle’s Middle English works to be published by the Medieval English Text Series (METS, 2021). He is the co-editor of the book series, New Queer Medievalisms (MIPS). Favorite Quote: “I am inevitable.”
Education
Publications
- Queering Richard Rolle: Eremiticism and Mystical Theology in the 14th Century. New York: Palgrave, 2017
- Domestic Mysticism in Margery Kempe and Dame Julian of Norwich: The Transformation of Christian Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
- “Religious Debate and Polemic in the Retraction.” The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. opencanterburytales.com. [publication August 2016]
- “Ancrene Wisse and Actor-Network Theory.” [Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, publication 2017].
- “Bios in The Prick of Conscience: The Apophatic Body and the Sensuous Soul.” Life is But a Thoroughfare. Punctum Books. [June 2016].
- “The Counter-conduct of Medieval Hermits.” Foucault Studies. 21 (2016): 80-97.
- “Mouthing the Passion: Richard Rolle’s Soundscapes.” Special Issue of Sounding Out! http://soundstudiesblog.com/2016/04/04/mouthing-the-passion-richard-rolles-soundscapes/ (Indexed by the MLA Bibliography) (April 2016).
- “Introduction: Medieval Sound.” Co-authored with Dorothy Kim. Special Issue on Medieval Sound of Sounding Out! http://soundstudiesblog.com/2016/04/04/17060/ (Indexed by the MLA Bibliography) (April 2016).
- “The Dialogue of Catherine of Siena: A Charity Born of Solitude.” Magistra: A Journal of Medieval Feminist Theology. 21.1 (2015): 111-133.
- “Thinking with the Elements: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Object-Oriented Ontology.” We Should Look at Green Again: Representations of Nature in Middle Earth. Ed. Martin Simonson. Zollikofen: Walking Tree Publishers, 2015. 95-119.
- “The Owl of the System: Alice Notley’s Queer Poetics in The Descent of Alette.” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies (2015): 1-13.
- “The Ethical Movement of Daenerys Targaryen.” Studies in Medievalism 23 (2014): 61-68.
- “Uncoupling the Hermit: Richard Rolle’s Hermit-ing.” Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary 7 (2013): 117-135.
- “Contemplating Finitude: Animals in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts. Ed. Carolynn Van Dyke. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. 148-153.
- “Margery Kempe and Italy: Sacred Space and the Community in Her Soul.” Travels and Travelogues in the Middle Ages. Ed. Dr. Jean-Francois Kosta-Thefaine. New York: AMS Press of New York, 2009. 157-188. http://www.amspressinc.com/titles/64168.html.