William E. Burgwinkle is a UK-based American medievalist and French scholar. He is an emeritus professor in medieval French and Occitan literature at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

, an emeritus fellow at King's College, and a former president of the

Society for French Studies The Society for French Studies, or SFS, is the oldest learned association for French Studies in the UK and Ireland. It aims to promote teaching and research in French Studies within higher education. the president is Professor Judith Still. Sch ...

Early life

Burgwinkle studied at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, at Boston College, and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and completed his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

entitled ''The Troubador as Subject: Biography, Erotics and Culture'' in 1988 at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. His early years were spent in Clinton, Massachusetts.

Career

Burgwinkle previously taught at

City College of San Francisco City College of San Francisco (CCSF or City College) is a State school#United States, public community college in San Francisco, California. Founded as a Junior college#United States, junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local ...

, Stanford University, and the

University of Hawai'i at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. He is a Professor in Medieval French and Occitan Literature at King's College, Cambridge. He served as Head of the French Department at the University of Cambridge from 2009 to 2012. His research focuses on

vernacular literature Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people". In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin nor Koine Greek. In this context, vernacular literature appeared ...

, especially the Occitan

troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...

s, gender and queer theory,

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

, and the history and travels of medieval manuscripts. Burgwinkle was awarded a Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching in 2006.Cambridge University Newsletter, July/August 2006 p. 12. In 2011, he became a knight of the

Ordre des Palmes Académiques A suite, in Western classical music and jazz, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with ...

for his contributions to the dissemination of French culture through education.

Publications

* ''Sodomy, Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature, 1050-1230'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004) * ''Love for sale: Materialist Readings of the Troubadour Razo Corpus'' (Garland, 1997) * ''Razos and Troubadour Songs'' (Garland, 1990). * (as co-editor with Glenn Man and Valerie Wayne) ''Significant Others: Gender and Culture in Film and Literature, East and West'' (Hawaii, 1992). * "The Cambridge History of French Literature", co-edited with Nick Hammond and Emma Wilson (Cambridge University Press, 2011) * "Sanctity and Pornography in Medieval culture: on the verge", co-author with Cary Howie (Manchester UP, 2010) * ''Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad''. co-author with Simon Gaunt and Jane Gilbert (Oxford University Press, 2020)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burgwinkle, Bill Living people Stanford University alumni American medievalists Fellows of King's College, Cambridge American literary critics Literary critics of French Queer theorists Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Year of birth missing (living people)