University of California, Riverside: Department of English

Faculty

John M. Ganim, Professor
Ph.D. Indiana University

John M. Ganim (B.A. Rutgers; M.A., Ph.D. Indiana University) is the author of three books, Style and Consciousness in Middle English Narrative (1983), Chaucerian Theatricality (1990), both published by Princeton University Press and Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity (2005), published by Palgrave MacMillan. He has also written articles published in PMLA , ELH , The Literary Review and elsewhere. He is presently President (2006-2008) of the New Chaucer Society. Previously, he has served as a Trustee of the New Chaucer Society and as chair of the Executive Committee of the Middle English Division of the Modern Language Association. He held a Guggenheim fellowship in 2001. . He also serves on the boards of Envoi and Exemplaria . At UCR, he has been department chair and graduate advisor, and is presently coordinator of the Mellon Foundation Workshop on Medieval Cultures and Postmodern Legacies, which brings together graduate students and faculty from across campus to meet with distinguished visiting scholars. His recent seminars have included (unofficially titled) The Confession Seminar, the Space Seminar, the Time Seminar and the Occult History of Britain, as well as seminars on the related issues of Urbanism, Architecture and Literature.

His recent papers and articles have covered a range of topics in Chaucer studies, medieval culture and medievalist themes in subsequent centuries: "Chaucer le Flaneur" at the Sorbonne (NCS) in 1998, pointed to the medieval theme in modern urban theory; "The Medieval Novel at the End of the Cold War" at Claremont Graduate University in 1998 uncovered an unexpectedly postcolonial set of concerns in recent historical novels set in the Middle Ages; "Orientalism and Medievalism at the World's Fairs," the 1997 Annual Rossell Hope Robbins Lecture of the New York Medieval Club illustrated the medieval installations at World's Fairs; "Victorian Anthropology and the Study of Medieval Drama" was presented at the invited Symposium on Medieval Theatricality, Yale University; "Chaucer and Free Love" at the MLA and "Chaucer in Bloomsbury" at the Warburg Institute (NCS) in 2000 pointed to the private appropriation of Chaucer by modernist writers. He delivered the Fifth Annual Klaus Jankofsky Memorial Lecture, University of Minnesota, Duluth in 2005 and the The Decherd Turner Bridwell Bibliophiles Lecture at Southern Methodist University in 2006.

Some representative articles include "The Myth of Medieval Romance" In Medievalism and the Modernist Temper, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Stephen G. Nichols (Johns Hopkins University, 1996): 148-167, which proposed the complex relation between romance, orientalism and gender as a component of literary medievalism; "Medieval Literature as Monster: The Grotesque Before and After Bakhtin," Exemplaria 7 (1995): 27-40, in which pointed to the orientalism of Bakhtin's Middle Ages; "Urbanism, Experience and Rhetoric in Some Early Descriptions of London" in The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the Drama in Honor of Martin Stevens (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 77-96, which discussed the rhetorical traditions of describing London; "Native Studies: Orientalism and the Origins of the Middle Ages," in The Post-Colonial Middle Ages , ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, The New Middle Ages. ( New York: St. Martins, 2000), pp. 123-134, which gives an overview of his recent research. Other recent articles include "Double-Entry in the Shipman's Tale: Chaucer and Bookkeeping Before Pacioli," Chaucer Review 30 (1996): 80-91; "Chaucer, Boccaccio, Confession and Subjectivity." In The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, ed. Brenda Schildgen and Leonard Koff (Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999) pp. 128-147; and "The Interpretation of Dreams: Chaucer's Early Poems, Literary Criticism and Literary Theory," in Chaucer's Dream Visions: A Casebook , ed. William Quinn (New York: Garland, 1999, pp. 463-476.) Some articles may be available on-line, including “The Hero in the Classroom,” in Martha Driver, ed., Time Bandits: Representations of the Medieval Hero on Film. New York: MacFarland, 2004. [http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/excerpts/0-7864-1926-1.Chapter14.pdf] ; “Identity and Subjecthood” in The Oxford Student’s Guide to Chaucer, ed. Steve Ellis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp.224-238. [ Oxford University Press http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-925912-7.pdf] and “A Belated Afterword to The Once and Future Medievalism,” antiTHESIS. University of Melbourne Postgraduate Journal in English and Cultural Studies. Special Issue on The Once and Future Medievalism. On-Line. [http://www.english.unimelb.edu.au/antithesis/forum-3/12-JohnGanim.html].

PUBLICATIONS

Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity ( New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005).

INVITED LECTURES

Served as Visiting International Scholar and Visiting Arts Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in September, 2004.

Presented a lecture, “The Occult History of Britain,” at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, September 15, 2004.

Delivered the keynote address at the conference on “Once and Future Medievalisms” at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on September 27, 2004.

Presented a lecture, “Library Architecture After Postmodernism,” to at the annual dinner of the Friends of the Bailleu Library, Melbourne, Australia in September, 2004.

Delivered the Fifth Annual Klaus Jankofsky Memorial Lecture, University of Minnesota, Duluth in April, 2005

Delivered the Decherd Turner Bridwell Bibliophiles Lecture at Southern Methodist University in January, 2006.

OTHER

International Associate, Network for Early European Research, sponsored by the University of Western Australia and the Australian Research Council.

Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim, Jr. Memorial Foundation in 2001-2002.

President, New Chaucer Society, 2005-2008.