Holly A. Crocker

Assistant Professor
Office: 513 Humanities Office Building
(803) 777-2305
hcrocker@mailbox.sc.edu

Education

Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 1999
M.Phil., University of Wales, 1998

Specialization Areas

• Medieval and Reformation Literatures and Cultures
• Gender Studies
• Visual Studies

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

• ENGL 401:  Chaucer the Poet
• ENGL 406:  Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories
• ENGL 419N:  Medieval Masculinities
• ENGL 437:  Women Writers
• ENGL 705:  Chaucer’s Men
• ENGL 705:  The Soul of Chaucer
• ENGL 708:  Envisioning the Self in Medieval Literature

Current Projects

I am currently completing two cross-period essay projects: the first, “Domestic Tyrants: Feminizing Shrews on the Renaissance Stage,” traces the increasing association of the term “shrew” with women between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly as this trend informs the debate over political tyranny and domestic authority in the shrew-dramas of Shakespeare and Fletcher. Research for this essay will form part of my next book, provisionally entitled Conductive Subjects: Engendering Virtue in Premodern England, which investigates the impact of a cultivated ideal of feminine virtue on formations of masculinity in Chaucer, Fletcher, Henryson, Lodge, Shakespeare, and Spenser. The second, “John Foxe’s Chaucer: Reading the Aesthetics of Reform in Early Modern England,” examines the growing connection between reformist aesthetics and reading practices in early modern England. In support of these projects, I recently received a Short-Term Fellowship from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Josephine Abney Faculty Fellowship Award from the USC Women’s Studies Program.

Books

Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood.  The New Middle Ages.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Ed., Comic Provocations:  Exposing the Corpus of Old French Fabliaux.  Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Journal Articles

•  “Affective Politics in Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale:  ‘Cherl’ Masculinity after 1381.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 29 (2007): 225-58.
                       
•  “Manufacture in the Archive:  Impingham’s Chaucer in BL. MS. Harley 7333.” Medieval Feminist Forum, 39 (2005):  29-37.
 
•  “Performative Passivity and Fantasies of Masculinity in The Merchant’s Tale.”  Chaucer Review, 38.2 (2003):  178-98.

•  “Affective Resistance:  Performing Passivity and Playing A-Part in The Taming of the Shrew,” Shakespeare Quarterly, 54.2 (2003):  142-59.

Book Chapters

• “Masochism, Masculinity, and the Pleasures of Troilus,” Men and Masculinities in Troilus and Criseyde.  Ed. Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith-Marzec.  Cambridge, UK:  D.S. Brewer, 2008. 153-81.  Co-authored with Tison Pugh.

•  “Chaucer’s Man Show:  Anachronistic Authority in Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale.” Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema.  Ed. Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh.  The New Middle Ages.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.  183-97.

•  “Masculinity.” Reading the Lord of the Rings.  Ed. Robert Eaglestone.  London:  Continuum, 2005.  111-23; 181-85; 198-200.

•  “Wifely Eye for the Manly Guy:  Trading the Masculine Image in the Shipman’s Tale.”  “Seyd in forme and reverence”:  Essays in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr.  Ed. John F. Plummer and Tom Burton, Chaucer Studio, 2005.  133-47.

•  “How the Woman Makes the Man:  Chaucer’s Reciprocal Fictions in Troilus and Criseyde.”  New Perspectives on Criseyde.  Ed.  Marcia Smith-Marzec and Cindy Vitto. Fairview, NC:  Pegasus P, 2004.  139-64.

Shorter/Commissioned Essays

• “Playing Household” Critical Essay, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC, Guide to the Season’s Plays, 2007-2008. 16-24.

 •  “Teaching Masculinities in Chaucer’s Shorter Poems:  Historical Myths and Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale.”  Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Shorter Poems.  Ed. Angela Jane Weisl and Tison Pugh.  New York:  Modern Language Association Press, 2006. 76-80.

Reviews

• Shakespeare Quarterly, Renaissance Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, Medieval Feminist Forum, and Envoi.

Recent and Upcoming Presentations

• “’How-to’ Masculinity in Hoccleve’s Series,” New Chaucer Society, Swansea, Wales, July 18-22, 2008.

• “An Unruly Influence: Peter G. Beidler and Chaucer's Fabliaux,” 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 8-11, 2008.

• "Specters of Reform: John Foxe's Chaucer," Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, December 27-30, 2007.

• "Envisioning Masculine Authority in Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection," Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, December 27-30, 2007.

• “Conductive Subjects: Engendering Virtue in Late Medieval Devotional Literature,” Women’s Studies Research Series Lecture, USC, November 14, 2007.