Kenneth Hodges

2707 Hollywood Avenue                                     English Department

Norman, OK 73072                                                  760 Van Vleet Oval, Room 113

(405) 217-9762                                                    University of Oklahoma

khodges@ou.edu                                                        Norman, OK 73019

                                                                                    Fax: (405) 325-0831

 

Employment

 

2001 - present Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK.

2000 - 2001 Visiting Assistant Professor, Bates College, Lewiston, ME.

1999 - 2000 Visiting Assistant Professor, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA. 

                                   

Education

 

1999    Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, English Language and Literature.

            Dissertation: “Martial Arts: Malory's Le Morte Darthur and Late Medieval Chivalry.”  Dissertation Committee: Karla Taylor (chair), Theresa Tinkle, Michael Schoenfeldt. 

1993    M.A., University of California at Berkeley, Mathematics. 

1990    B.A., Williams College, summa cum laude, Physics and English (with honors).

Publications

            Medieval and Renaissance

 

"English Knights, French Books, and Malory's Narrator," Fifteenth-Century Studies (forthcoming).

“Malory and Caxton,” Year’s Work in English Studies 81 (forthcoming).

“Swords and Sorceresses: The Chivalry of Malory’s Nyneve,” Arthuriana 12.2 (summer 2002): 78-96.

"Wið Earm Gesæt and Beowulf's Shoulder Pin." English Language Notes 34.3 (March 1997): 4-10.

 

            Other

 

Deborah Bergstrand et al.  "Product graphs are sum graphs."  Mathematics Magazine 65.4 (1992): 262-264.

Manuel Alfaro et al.  "The Structure of Singularities in F-Minimizing Networks in R²."  Pacific Journal of Mathematics 149 (1991): 201-210.

Manuel Alfaro et al.  "Segments Can Meet in Fours in Energy-Minimizing Networks." Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics 22 (1990): 9-20.

Deborah Bergstrand et al.  "The sum number of a complete graph."  Malaysian Mathematical Society Bulletin. Second Series 12.1 (1989): 25-28.

 

 

Work under Review

 

“Drawing on Tradition: Translating Japanese Anime,” Genre.

Richard Bailey et al, A London Provisioner’s Day Book during the Reign of Elizabeth I, under review at the History E-Book Project, University of Michigan Press.  I helped transcribe and edit the diary of Henry Machyn.

 

Work in Progress

 

Chivalry in Transition: Malory and Martial Culture between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  This book project argues that chivalry is a set of conventions for regulating and interpreting violence, conventions that were in constant flux as various classes of people tried to use them for their own advantages.  Chivalry’s flexibility allowed it to make the transition from the medieval to the early modern period, even as it ceased being an exclusively knightly code.  By situating knightly performances in the complete martial context, which included archers staging plays and claiming chivalric status for themselves, traditions of urban, non-knightly swordsmanship, and even women who took up arms when necessary, I then spend several chapters analyzing the most important fifteenth-century chivalric text, Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur.  I argue that the continuing debate over the type of chivalry Malory endorses springs from the failure to recognize that Malory is not celebrating one kind of chivalry: instead, he is showing how social forces drive the evolution of differing, potentially competing, styles of chivalry.

 

Presentations

 

“Chivalric Women,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 2003.

“Grail Doubts,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 2001.

"Swords and Sorceresses: Malory's Morgan le Fay and Nyneve," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 2000.

“Martial Maids and Tempestuous Termes,” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies convention, Newport, RI, 1999.

“English Nationalism, French Books,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 1998.

.

Service

 

Panel chair, “Philosophical Issues in Malory,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2001.

Reader, Oxford University Press.

Composition Committee, University of Oklahoma, 2002-2003.

 

Honors and Awards

 

1998-9                   Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan.

1996                  Rackham One-Term Fellowship, University of Michigan.

1990                    National Science Foundation fellowship honorable mention.

1989-90                  Baxter Scholarship, Williams College.

1989          Phi Beta Kappa.

1986-91         Tyng Scholarship.

1986-87                  National Merit Scholarship.

 

Classes Taught

 

University of Oklahoma, Visiting Assistant Professor

            Shakespeare’s Comedies (English 4523)

Arthurian Literature (English 3573)

Medieval Literature (English 3513)

British Literature to 1700 (English 2543)

World Literature to 1700 (English 2433)

Critical Reading & Writing: The Early Modern War Over Women (English 2313)

Bates College, Visiting Assistant Professor

Seventeenth-Century Literature (English 222)

Technologies of Reading (English 217) (On oral, manuscript, print, and digital

literature)

Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Culture (English 209)

Reading Arthurian English Literature (English 121)

Dinosaurs in the Garden: Science in Literature (short term)

Advised senior theses on Christine de Pizan and Judith.

Allegheny College, Visiting Assistant Professor

Medieval Romance (English 553)

Chaucer (English 311)

Forms of Fiction (English 301)

Topics in Early British Literature: Medieval Romance (English 201)

Reading Literature: Le Morte Darthur (English 200)

Advised a senior thesis on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

University of Michigan, Graduate Student Instructor 

Classes designed and taught:

Argumentative Writing (English 225). 

College Writing (English 125)

Writing about Arthurian Literature (English 124)

Classes assisted:

A mixed undergraduate/graduate class on the use of computers in the humanities

An upper level undergraduate classes on science fiction

British Literature through the Eighteenth Century.

University of California at Berkeley, Graduate Student Instructor, Math

I designed and taught supplemental workshops for minorities taking real analysis, abstract algebra, and linear algebra.  I also assisted several calculus classes.

 

Teaching Interests

 

Chaucer; Arthurian literature; Old English; medieval literature; Renaissance literature; romance; history of the language; Victorian invocations of the middle ages; science fiction.

 

 

 

Related Experience

 

1999 Participant, Writing Across the Millennium Conference, University of Michigan.  This brought together high school teachers and college professors and instructors from around Michigan to discuss how better to teach writing across disciplines.

1998 Reader, English Composition Board Portfolio Assessment Program, University of Michigan.  I read portfolios of three to five essays from incoming students to place them in the appropriate writing classes.

1996 SGML coder, Humanities Text Initiative, University of Michigan.  I did the computer coding and proof-reading to create electronic editions of medieval texts.

1995 Research and Technology in the Humanities Graduate Student Seminar at the University of Michigan.  This two-week seminar focused on how new computer technology could be used in classrooms and in research in the humanities.

 

Languages

 

Speaking (fair): German, Japanese.

Reading: German, Old English, Latin, French. 

 

Professional Affiliations

 

Modern Language Association.

Medieval Academy of America.

International Arthurian Society, North American Branch.

 

Recommendations

 

Karla Taylor, Associate Professor of English (dissertation director), Department of English Language and Literature, 3187 Angell Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003  Phone: (734) 764-6363.  Email: kttaylor@umich.edu.

Michael Schoenfeldt, Professor of English, Department of English Language and Literature, 3187 Angell Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003.  Phone: (734) 764-6378.  Email: mcschoen@umich.edu.

Theresa Tinkle, Associate Professor of English, Department of English Language and Literature, 3187 Angell Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003.  Phone: (734) 763-0967.  Email: tinkle@umich.edu .

Christina Malcolmson, Chair, English Department, Bates College, Lewiston, ME 04240.  Phone: (207) 786-6316.  Email: cmalcolm@bates.edu.

David Mair, Chair, English Department, 760 Van Vleet Oval, Rm. 113, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019.  Phone: (405) 325-4661.  Email: dmair@ou.edu.

Dan Ransom, Associate Professor and Director of the Chaucer Variorum, English Department, 760 Van Vleet Oval, Rm. 113, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019.  Phone: (405) 360-4888. Email: djransom@ou.edu.