Myra Seaman
Professor and M.A. Program Director
Myra Seaman teaches courses in English literature and culture of the later Middle Ages (1200-1500), medievalisms, and English grammar and history. Her scholarly work focuses on anonymous Middle English verse texts. Her book Objects of Affection: The Book and the Household in Late Medieval England (2021, Manchester University Press), investigates late Middle English household manuscripts and the moral ecology collaboratively produced by the people, objects, and nonhuman animals that make up the household. Her current book project, Cultures of Anonymity: Authorship and Interpretation in Middle English Literature, aims to develop a detailed understanding of medieval and modern attitudes toward anonymity in order to deploy it as a useful tool for interpreting Middle English literature more broadly. Much of her work is collaborative and editorial, including the award-winning journal postmedieval, which she co-founded in 2010, and the Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales.
Education
Ph.D., English with an emphasis on Medieval Literature, Claremont Graduate University
M.A., English, Claremont Graduate University
B.A., English, State University of New York - Buffalo
Research Interests
- Middle English literature
- medieval cultures
- manuscript study
- medievalisms
- history of emotion
- new materialisms
- Feminist methodologies
Courses Taught
ENGL 361.02: King Arthur and His World
ENGL 361.02: Medieval Feminism
ENGL 361.01: Medieval Natures
ENGL 299: Intro to English Studies
ENGL 360: The Future Perfect Human
Honors and Awards
Distinguished Faculty Research Award, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø 2025
Susan J. Ridyard Prize, Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, for “Anonymous Authorship and Collective Identity,” 2024
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø ExCEL Award, Administrator of the Year, 2019
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø ExCEL Award, Outstanding Faculty for the School of HSS, 2015
Codex Award for 2015 by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ), to postmedieval, 2015
ASLSP Award for Best New Journal 2012 [awarded by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, UK], to postmedieval, 2012
PROSE Award for Best New Journal in Humanities and Social Sciences [granted by The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence], to postmedieval, 2011
Recent Publications
“’,” co-authored with Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy, in special issue on the centennial of the Medieval Academy of America, co-edited by Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, Speculum 100.1 (2025): 119-54.
Textual Practice 38.2 (2024): 257-79.
Objects of Affection: The Book and the Household in Late Medieval England (Manchester University Press, 2021).
"Renovating the Household Through Affective Invention in Manuscripts Ashmole 61 and Advocates 19.3.1" in Household Knowledges in Late Medieval England and France, eds. Glenn D. Burger and Rory G. Critten (Manchester University Press, 2019).
, co-edited with Candace Barrington, Brantley Bryant, Dan Kline, and Richard Godden (2017)
in , co-edited by Candace Barrington, Brantley Bryant, Dan Kline, Richard Godden, and Myra Seaman (2017).
Fragments for a History of a Vanishing Humanism. Co-edited with Eileen A. Joy. Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture series. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2016.
Co-authored with J. Allan Mitchell and Julie Orlemanski. Editors’ introduction to special journal issue Critical/Liberal/Arts. postmedieval 6.4 (2015): 361-74.
Ed. Eileen A. Joy and Myra Seaman. Brooklyn, NY: punctum books, 2014.
“Medieval Prime Time: Entertaining the Family in Fifteenth-Century England––and Educating Students in Twenty-First Century America.” Pedagogy 13.2 (2013): 213-28.
“Disconsolate Art.” In Eds. Eileen A. Joy, Myra Seaman, and Nicola Masciandaro. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books, 2013. 139-49.
“Late Medieval Conduct Literature.” The History of British Women’s Writing, to 1500. Vol. 1. Eds. Liz McAvoy and Diane Watt. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2011. 121–30.