Faculty Bio

Patricia A. DeMarco 

Professor of English

Education 

• B.A., LeMoyne College
• M.A., State University of New York, Binghamton
• Ph.D., Duke University

About

Patricia DeMarco joined the English department in 2000. She is a specialist in late medieval literature in England and France, with particular interests in the romance tradition and the poetry of the Ricardian court, including that of Chaucer and Gower. Her current book in progress is a comprehensive study of literary depictions of war (private, public, holy) and the changing place of vengeance in the identity of the “chivalric classes.” DeMarco’s research has been published in peer-reviewed publications such as Speculum and Studies in the Age of Chaucer. In 2004, she was awarded Ohio Wesleyan’s Sherwin Dodge Shankland Award for outstanding teaching, and in 2005 she was the recipient of Teagle Foundation funds for the advancement and assessment of student learning.

Area of Interest / Expertise 

• Middle English Literature
• Medieval Law
• The Regulation of Violence

Publications / Presentations 

• “Inscribing the Body with Meaning Chivalric Culture and the Norms of Violence in The Vows of the Heron.” In Inscribing the Hundred Years War, ed. Denise Baker. SUNY Series in Medieval Cultures. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press (2000): 27–53.
• “An Arthur for the Ricardian Age: Crown, Nobility and the Alliterative Morte Arthure.” 80.2 Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies (2005): 464–93.
• “Violence, Law and Ciceronian Ethics in Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee.” 30 Studies in the Age of Chaucer (2008): forthcoming.

Winner of the 2004 Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for Encouragement of Teachers