Research Interests: Old and Middle English literature; the
literary and physical structure of medieval compilations; medieval
London's literary, political, and legal culture; chivalric performance
and spectacle.
Arthur Bahr graduated summa cum laude from Amherst
College with majors in English, French, and Medieval Studies. Following
a Fulbright year studying medieval sagas in Iceland, he began doctoral
work at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied the
literary culture of fourteenth-century London, examining how the structure
of literary and legal compilations produced in the City comprised
complex arguments about the proper nature of royal power and civic
polity. After completing his PhD in 2006, he joined the English department
of Haverford College as Visiting Assistant Professor; he is extremely
excited now to be a member of MIT’s Literature Section.
Professor Bahr's teaching interests include Chaucer, the works of
the Pearl-poet, and medieval romance; medieval Icelandic
sagas; Old English language and literature; and representations of
medieval culture in later periods, from Spenser's Faerie Queene
to medieval-influenced subcultures around today (the SCA, Tolkien-lovers,
et al.). He enjoys teaching from a broad range of periods, however,
including ancient Greek tragedy, early modern drama, and satiric writings
of all kinds.
When not teaching or researching, Arthur enjoys taking on ambitious cooking projects, keeping tabs on Project Runway, lamenting the cancellation of Arrested Development, and serving as a National judge of the United States Figure Skating Association. (He promises he's not corrupt, though.) And he loves his cat, Alcina, more than most anything.
“Fear and Time in Beowulf.” Under consideration
at Studies in Philology.
“Ricardian Literature,” in the International Encyclopedia
for the Middle Ages. Patrick Geary, general editor. Brepols
Publishers and the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
2006.
“Social and Codicological Contexts in the Auchinleck Manuscript.”
Presented at the International Congress of Medievalists, Kalamazoo,
MI, May 2005
“Mercantile Poetics and Civic Liberties in Medieval London”
Presented at the International Congress of Medievalists, Kalamazoo,
MI, May 2003
“Political Uses of English Literature in a Fifteenth-Century
Welsh Manuscript.” Presented at the California Celtic Studies
Conference, Berkeley, CA, April 2003.
“The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in
Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess.” The Chaucer
Review 35.1 (2000): 43-59.
“Authorizing the New Vernacular: The Uses of Aristotle and
the Roman de la Rose in Evrart de Conty’s Echecs
amoureux moralisés.”
Symposium in Honor of Visiting Professor A. J. Minnis, Berkeley,
CA, May 2000
21L.001 Foundations of Western Culture
21L.005 Introduction to Drama
21L.455 Classical Literature
21L.460 Medieval Literature
