Sylvia A. Federico

Sylvia Federico (BA, Purchase College; MA, PhD, Indiana University) joined the faculty at Bates in 2005. Author of New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages (U of Minnesota Press, 2003), and co-editor of The Post-Historical Middle Ages (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), she is currently writing a new book on Chaucer and Walsingham’s shared classicism. Recent articles include “Chaucer’s Matter of Spain” (Chaucer Review 2010) and “Queer Times: Richard II in the Poems and Chronicles of Late Fourteenth-Century England” (Medium Aevum 2010).

At Bates, Professor Federico teaches introductory and advanced medieval literature, language, and culture. Recent courses include Chaucer, Arthurian Romance, and Screening the Middle Ages. Courses to be offered in the near future include an Introduction to Middle English Literature and a seminar on Medieval London. She is also currently planning a a new course related to “Non-Western Medieval Literary Tranditions” (funded by a Mellon Foundation Innovation Grant).

Professor Federico is the recipient of several prestigious teaching and research awards, including the Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, and—most recently, the American Council of Learned Societies ACLS Fellowship, which funds her current sabbatical leave. Professor Federico returns to teaching in Winter 2013.