John A. Geck

 

Associate Professor

Education

  • License in Mediaeval Studies (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies)
  • PhD, Medieval Studies (University of Toronto)
  • MA, Medieval Studies (University of Toronto)
  • BA, English (University of Rochester)

Contact Information

Research Interests

  • Medieval literary transmissions of high to low culture (romance, drama, hagiography)
  • Medievalist transmissions of medieval to modern (literature and film)
  • Historical and documentary contexts of late medieval English drama and public performance
  • Textual criticism and editing
  • Medieval literary place and space; travel, trade, and other intercultural and interreligious contact; historical geographic information systems (GIS)

Selected Publications

  • “ Corpus Christi, Corpus Cyborgensis, and the Body Politic: The Passion Play of RoboCop,” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (forthcoming)
  • “Interrogating Chivalry and the Hunt in the Auchinleck Guy of Warwick.” Florilegium, vol. 29, 2012, pp. 117-145.
  • “‘For Goddes love, sir, mercy!:’ Recontextualising the Modern Critical Text of Floris and Blancheflor.” Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts, edited by Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon, D. S. Brewer, 2011, pp. 77-89.
  • “‘On yestern day, in Feverere, the yere passeth fully:” On the dating and prosopography of Mankind.” Early Theatre, vol. 12, no.2, 2009, pp. 33-56.

Conference Presentations and Lectures

  • “Cross-Religious Meetings: Relics, Idols, and Conversion in The Sultan of Babylon, Floris and Blancheflor, and The King of Tars.” Fifty-Second International Congress on Medieval Studies, 13 May 2018, Western Michigan University, USA.
  • “‘Wit lettres of grewe, of latyne, and of þe langage of Inde:’ Locations in Robert Thornton’s Manuscripts.” Medieval Insular Romance Conference, 11 April 2018, Cardiff University, UK.
  • “Kingmaking and Playmaking in Fifteenth-Century East Anglia: Records of Drama and Performance during the War of the Roses.” Fifty-Second International Congress on Medieval Studies, 12 May 2017, Western Michigan University, USA.
  • “Codex Cervisarius: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Medievalism of Craft Beer in Quebec and Ontario.” Fifty-Second International Congress on Medieval Studies, 11 May 2017, Western Michigan University, Canada.
  • “‘Casteles and kingdomes and countrees many:’ mapping the unmappable in medieval romance.” 15th Biennial Romance in Medieval Britain Conference, 17 August 2016, University of British Columbia, Canada.
  • “‘The proude court of Paradis:” Explorations of otherness in Middle English romance.” Fifty-First International Congress on Medieval Studies, 13 May 2016, Western Michigan University, USA.
  • “Mapping Medieval Romance: An Index of Place-Names in GIS.” Mapping Sense, Space, and Time: A Digital Mapping Workshop, 28 April 2016, University of Toronto, Canada.
  • “MORROIS: Mapping of Romance Realms & Other Imagined Spaces” (Two hour workshop). Jackman Humanities Institute’s Digital Mapping Working Group, 22 February 2016, University of Toronto, Canada.
  • “The Hagiographical Vita Amici et Amelii and the Exemplary Romance Amis and Amiloun.” Forty-Ninth International Congress on Medieval Studies, 8 May 2014, Western Michigan University, USA.
  • “Mapping the Canterbury Tales.” “Digital Mapping: Tracing the Senses [workshop],” 4 April 2014, University of Toronto, Canada.
  • “‘from thennes faste he gan avyse / This litel spot of erthe:’ GIS and the General Prologue.” Fifth Annual Canada Chaucer Seminar, 27 April 2013, University of Toronto, Canada.

Current Research Projects

  • Morrois: Mapping of Romance Realms and Other Imagined Spaces ( https://morrois.net/)
  • The Elaborated Vita Amici et Amelii : Critical Edition and Introduction
  • Ambiguity and Aporia in Middle English Romance (working title; monograph)
  • Cambridgeshire: Records of Early English Drama (closing editor)

Regularly Taught Courses

Undergraduate

  • English 1192: Imagined Places
  • English 2600: Introduction to Middle English
  • English 3828: The Middle Ages and the Movies
  • English 4601: Medieval Romance Literature
  • Medieval Studies 2000: Cultural Legacy of the Middle Ages

Graduate

  • A Dangerous Recreation: Medieval Romance and the Contemporary Reader
  • Medieval Topographies: Place, Space, and Travel

Honours And Graduate Supervision

  • Middle English romance, drama, or hagiography
  • Medievalism
  • Translations of Anglo-Norman or Latin into English
  • Textual Criticism
  • Literary geographies, topographies (with or without GIS component)
  • Science fiction, fantasy, and horror