Myra Seaman

Professor and M.A. Program Director

Myra Seaman teaches courses in English literature and culture of the later Middle Ages (1200-1500), medievalisms, and English grammar and history. Her scholarly work focuses on anonymous Middle English verse texts. Her book Objects of Affection: The Book and the Household in Late Medieval England (2021, Manchester University Press), investigates late Middle English household manuscripts and the moral ecology collaboratively produced by the people, objects, and nonhuman animals that make up the household. Her current book project, An  Account of Absence: The Value of Anonymity in Middle English Literature, aims to develop a detailed understanding of medieval and modern attitudes toward anonymity in order to deploy it as a useful tool for interpreting Middle English literature more broadly. Much of her work is collaborative and editorial, including the award-winning journal postmedieval, which she co-founded in 2010, and the Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales.

Education

Ph.D., English with an emphasis on Medieval Literature, Claremont Graduate University

M.A., English, Claremont Graduate University

B.A., English, State University of New York - Buffalo

Research Interests

  • Middle English literature
  • medieval cultures
  • manuscript study
  • medievalisms
  • history of emotion
  • new materialisms
  • Feminist methodologies

Courses Taught

ENGL 361.02: King Arthur and His World

ENGL 361.02: Medieval Feminism 

ENGL 361.01: Medieval Natures

ENGL 299: Intro to English Studies

ENGL 360: The Future Perfect Human

Recent Publications

"Anonymity, Canonicity, and Literary Value." Textual Practice 38.2 (2024): 257-79.

Objects of Affection: The Book and the Household in Late Medieval England (Manchester University Press, 2021).

"Renovating the Household Through Affective Invention in Manuscripts Ashmole 61 and Advocates 19.3.1" in Household Knowledges in Late Medieval England and France, eds. Glenn D. Burger and Rory G. Critten (Manchester University Press, 2019).

Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales, co-edited with Candace Barrington, Brantley Bryant, Dan Kline, and Richard Godden (2017) 

“Feminism and Women’s Experience in the Manciple’s Tale,” in Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales, co-edited by Candace Barrington, Brantley Bryant, Dan Kline, Richard Godden, and Myra Seaman (2017).  

Fragments for a History of a Vanishing Humanism. Co-edited with Eileen A. Joy. Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture series. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2016. 

“Recomposing the Critical Liberal Arts.” Co-authored with J. Allan Mitchell and Julie Orlemanski. Editors’ introduction to special journal issue Critical/Liberal/Arts. postmedieval 6.4 (2015): 361-74. 

Burn After Reading. Vol. I: Miniature Manifestoes for a Post/medieval Studies. Ed. Eileen A. Joy and Myra Seaman. Brooklyn, NY: punctum books, 2014. 

“Medieval Prime Time: Entertaining the Family in Fifteenth-Century England––and Educating Students in Twenty-First Century America.” Pedagogy 13.2 (2013): 213-28. 

“Disconsolate Art.” In Dark Chaucer: An Assortment. Eds. Eileen A. Joy, Myra Seaman, and Nicola Masciandaro. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books, 2013. 139-49. 

“Late Medieval Conduct Literature.” The History of British Women’s Writing, to 1500. Vol. 1. Eds. Liz McAvoy and Diane Watt. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2011. 121–30.