Additional Information / Informations supplémentaires

Office and Office Hour / Bureau et heure de réception

Research Interests / Recherches

Fiona Tolhurst is Maître assistante in Medieval and Early Modern English at the University of Geneva. She completed a BA in English and Psychology at Rice University with both Magna cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa distinction. She then completed her MA and PhD in Medieval English Language and Literature at Princeton University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. Before becoming Maître assistante in Medieval and Early Modern English at Geneva, she was Professor of English at Alfred University and held short-term appointments at the Universities of Basel, Bern, Freiburg in Breisgau, Geneva, and Neuchâtel.

Her main research interests are the translation of the Arthurian legend from Latin into French and English, the portrayal of women in historical and literary texts, and the lives and writings of women mystics. She has two books forthcoming in Palgrave Macmillan’s Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures series: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend (November 2012) and Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship (2013). Her work has appeared in journals such as Arthuriana and The Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society as well as in volumes such as Sacred and Profane in Chaucer and Late Medieval Literature, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, and Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes. She has an essay forthcoming on Malory’s translation of the Grail quest in Malory and Christianity: Essays on Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur (2012).

Publications

Books and Monographs / Livres et monographies

In Press: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend. Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures series, Palgrave Macmillan, November 2012.

In Press: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship. Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

(editor, with Bonnie Wheeler) On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Maureen Fries (a collection of 32 articles). Eds. Bonnie Wheeler and Fiona Tolhurst (Dallas, TX: Scriptorium Press, 2001). Preface: “Maureen Fries, Arthurienne Extraordinaire,” pp. v-xiii.

(editor) Theoretical Approaches to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Special Issue of Arthuriana 8.4 (Winter 1998). 161 pages, 9 articles. Editor's Introduction: "Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britannie and the Critics," 8.4: 3-11.

Selected Articles and Chapters / Sélection d'articles et de chapitres

In Press: “Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Secularized Salvation in Le Morte Darthur” (12,000 words). Malory and Christianity: Essays on Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. Eds. D. Thomas Hanks, Jr. and Janet Jesmok (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University Press, 2012).

“The Radical, Yet Orthodox, Margery Kempe.” Sacred and Profane in Chaucer and Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honour of John V. Fleming. Eds. Robert Epstein and William Robins (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2010), pp. 179-204.

“C. S. Lewis” entry. Arthurian Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Eds. Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008): 249-64.

“Why We Should Teach—and Our Students Perform—The Legend of Good Women.” Teaching Chaucer (Teaching The New English Series). Eds. Gail Ashton and Louise M. Sylvester (New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, 2006), Chapter 3: 46-64.

“Guinevere” entry. Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Margaret Schaus (Oxford: Routledge, 2006): 338-39.

“Why Every Knight Needs His Lady: Re-Viewing Questions of Genre and ‘Cohesion’ in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.” Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes. Eds. K. S. Whetter and Raluca L. Radulescu (Woodbridge, England: Boydell and Brewer, 2005), Chapter 9: 133-47.

“The Great Divide?: History and Literary History as Partners in Medieval Mythography.” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 30.1 (Spring 2004): 7-27.

“What Ever Happened to Eleanor?: Reflections of Eleanor of Aquitaine in Wace's Roman de Brut and Lawman's Brut.” Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. Eds. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Palgrave Press, 2003), Chapter 15: 319-36.

“The Britons as Hebrews, Romans, and Normans: Geoffrey of Monmouth's British Epic and Reflections of Empress Matilda.” Arthuriana 8.4 (Winter 1998): 69-87.

“The Once and Future Queen: The Development of Guinevere from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Malory.” Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 50 (1998): 272-308.

Current Projects

Monograph: working title, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich as Feminist Theologians.

“Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe as Contemporary Cult Figures.” Invited submission for Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture, ed. Gail Ashton (London: Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2014).

Article under review: “Beyond the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis as Closet Arthurian.”

Article under review: “Helping Girls to Be Heroic?: Some Recent Arthurian Fiction for Young Adults.”