Wendy Scase is the Geoffrey Shepherd Professor of Medieval English Literature at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

. She is currently researching the material histories of English medieval literature, studying a range of material from one-sheet texts to the largest surviving Middle English manuscript.

Education & Career

Scase is a specialist in medieval English language and

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

. Scase began her academic career as an undergraduate in English and American Literature at the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

. She then moved to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

where she took an MPhil in English Medieval Studies 1100–1500, followed by a DPhil. From 1987 to 1990 she held a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowship (PDF) at the University of Oxford to study Medieval religious and polemical literature. Following completion of her PDF she took up a post lecturing in English at the

University of Hull , mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £18.8 million (2016) , budget = £190 million ...

, where she founded the Hull Centre for Medieval Studies in 2008. In 1999 she took up the Geoffrey Shepherd chair in Medieval English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is director of the

Vernon Manuscript The Vernon Manuscript (Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. a. 1) is a medieval English manuscript, written in the dialect spoken in the English West Midlands around 1400, that is now in the Bodleian Library, to whom it was presented around 1677 by Co ...

Project (in collaboration with the Bodleian Library, Oxford), and th
Electronic Catalogue of Vernacular Manuscript Books of the Medieval West Midlands
project. She is also a partner in th
Manuscripts Online
project. Scase is founding co-editor of
New Medieval Literatures
', with Rita Copeland (

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

) and David Lawton (

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

). She was previously a general editor for the ''Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe'' book series published by

Brepols Brepols is a Belgian publishing house. Once, it was one of the largest printing companies in the world and one of the main employers in Turnhout (Belgium). Besides its printing business, Brepols is also active as a publisher. Formerly well known ...

. She is currently a member of the editorial board of the journal ''Speculum''.

Select Bibliography

* 1989: Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 4. Cambridge University Press (repr. 2007) * 2007: Literature and Complaint in England, 1272–1553. Oxford University Press * 2007: (ed.) Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century, Brepols * 2008: (ed.) (with R. Copeland and D. Lawton). ''New Medieval Literatures'', vols 1-7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997–2005); vols 8–14, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006–13). * 2010: ''Late Fourteenth-Century Poetry (Chaucer, Gower, Langland and their Legacy)''. In (ed. M. S. C. O’Neill) The Cambridge History of English Poetry. Cambridge University Press * 2010: (ed.) The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile Edition, Bodleian Digital Texts 3. Bodleian Library. * 2011: The Making of the Vernon Manuscript: The Production and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet.a.1, Early Book Society Texts and Transitions: Studies in the History of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Brepols * 2013: ''Latin Composition Lessons, Piers Plowman, and the Piers Plowman Tradition''. In (eds. Frank Grady and Andrew Galloway) Answerable Style: The Idea of the Literary in Medieval England. Ohio State

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scase, Wendy Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Kent Academics of the University of Birmingham British medievalists Women medievalists British women historians