Rosemary O'Neill joined the English Department at Kenyon in 2011 after teaching at Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and teaching take up the literature of later medieval England, with a particular interest in how religious practices shaped the poetry of writers such as Chaucer, Langland, and the Pearl-Poet. At Kenyon, she teaches courses on medieval drama, medieval women writers, and literature and religion in medieval England a freshman seminar investigates the topic of marriage in literature from Plato to the present. She is completing a book project which explores the medieval image of the individual conscience as an account book, arguing that discourses of salvation in medieval England were shaped by divergent traditions of financial accounting. A new project investigates the history of the concept of family in Middle English literature. Her research has been supported by grants from the British Academy and the Medieval Academy.

Areas of Expertise

Medieval literature, history of the book, Chaucer

Education

PhD, MA, University of Pennsylvania
AB, University of Chicago

Courses Taught

English 103/104 What's Love Got to Do With It?
English 291 Medieval Drama
English 291 Writing Medieval Women