NSU faculty to present during Summer 2016 NEH Seminar

(Tahlequah, Okla.)-- Northeastern State University College of Liberal Arts faculty member Dr. Christopher Flavin will present research during the Summer 2016 National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar for Chaucer Studies. The seminar is located at Kent State University in Ohio beginningJuly 18and continuing throughAugust 13.

The NEH Summer Seminar is a full residency program with an immersive and intense research focus on the text and contemporary interpretations and approaches to Chaucers most recognizable text, Canterbury Tales. Under the direction of Susanna Fein, professor of English at Kent State University, and David Raybin, distinguished professor emeritus of English at Eastern Illinois, the seminar will include consideration to Chaucers 14thcentury relationships to his English and Continental influences; to his literary, cultural and artistic contemporaries; to writers who followed in his footsteps; and to various contemporary methods of analysis.

Dr. Phillip Bridgmon, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, described Flavin as a wonderful member of the strong faculty that makes up the College of Liberal Arts. Bridgmon said that the NEH support of Flavins work places him and the College of Liberal Arts in well-respected company with other scholars and universities.

Flavins research will be expanded by this support, and he will in turn share new knowledge and insights with his students, colleagues, and members of his discipline, Bridgmon said.

Flavin will present his research in week four of the seminar. Flavins research focuses on the position of The Cooks Tale as a liminal text and how the treatment of this tale influences the manuscript tradition of the Canterbury Tales more broadly, as well as modern critical interpretations of the text as a whole.

The theme of my work, re-evaluating the ways in which the Cooks Tale is commonly discussed in the scholarship surrounding The Canterbury Tales, is part of an ongoing research project I have been working on for some time and am planning on developing into a monograph, Flavin said.

Flavin stated that only 16 scholars were chosen to participate in this seminar and the teaching faculty are among the most recognized scholars in the field internationally. Flavin explained that it is rare for such a large group of Chaucer scholars to be in the same place for a month and even rarer for several of them to be focused on reinterpreting some of the long-standing traditions of the field regarding characters and interpretation.

I'm hoping that the feedback I can get on my work during the seminar will help put the last few pieces in place with my research so it can advance to the publication stage.