Shayne Legassie

Legassie Assistant Professor of English & Comp Literature (3225)

shayne@email.unc.edu

B.A. University of New Hampshire, Durham, 1998
M.A. Columbia University, 2000
Ph.D. Columbia University, 2007

Research And Teaching Interests

Shayne Legassie's research interests include the literature of medieval and Early Modern Europe, Mediterranean Studies, travel writing, gender and sexuality studies, and critical theory. His published and forthcoming essays have treated authors such as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Margery Kempe, and Jane Austen. Currently, he is completing the manuscript of his first book, "Differently Centered Worlds: The Traveler’s Body and the Rise of Late Medieval Travel Writing." The book argues that the emergence of European travel writing must be understood within the context of medieval Europe’s uneven integration into the larger global economy. In particular, it demonstrates that the representation of the traveler’s body provided writers with ways of thinking about the generic and formal possibilities of travel narrative in a world in which geographic knowledge was increasingly valued for its pragmatic, rather than its symbolic, uses. He has also begun the preliminary research for a second book with the working title "The Lives and Times of Medieval Corpses." This study will consider the role of corpses in medieval political spectacle and their frequent presence in the literature of Spain, Italy, and England.

Publications

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Chaucer’s Pardoner and Host—On the Road, in the Alehouse,” Studies

in the Age of Chaucer 29 (2007).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Pilgrimage” in Roads in Medieval England ed. Valerie Allen and Ruth

Evans (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press), Forthcoming.

Legassie, Shayne Aaron. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Medieval Travel” (Under

consideration)

Conference Presentations (Unpublished and Forthcoming)

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “The Birth of Adventure and the Geography of Chrétien de Troyes’

Cligès,” Annual Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan State University, Kalamazoo,

MI (May 2010).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Margey Kempe and the Discovery of the Americas: Gender, Genre,

and the Historiography of Travel Writing,” Joint conference organized by MEMS at UNC and

King’s College, London (March 2010).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Forensicphiles: Chaucer’s ‘Prioress’ Tale’ and Medieval Murder

Investigations,” New Chaucer Society Congress, Swansea, Wales (July 2008).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “The Mosque-Crashing Antics of Pero Tafur, Fifteenth-Century

Knight,” 22nd Annual Graduate Student Conference in Medieval Studies, Brown University

(October 2, 2004).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Necroerotic City: Death, Lesbian Desire, and Urban Economies in La

Celestina,” Annual Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (May 8, 2004).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “The Werewolf, His Wife, and the Melancholic Reader: Violence,

Canonicity and the Case of Marie de France,” The Flesh Made Text: Theories of the Body in the

Post-Millennial Era, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece (May 15, 2003).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Besieging the Castle: Rape, Gender, and National Identity (London,

1501),” Medieval Academy of America, New York City (April 5, 2002).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “Race, Nation, and Crusade in William of Malmesbury’s History of the

Kings of England,” Annual Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan State University,

Kalamazoo MI (May 3, 2002).

Legassie, Shayne Aaron, “The End of the Affair?: Maidstone’s Concordia and the Lollard

Twelfth Conclusion,” Annual Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan State University,

Shayne Legassie

Research And Teaching Interests

Publications

Courses Offered (As Schedule Allows)

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