Overview

Faculty

Majors

Courses

Activities & Opportunities

Resources

 

 

  


Jane Beal


Visiting Assistant Professor
On faculty since 2004

Office: 125 Blanchard Hall
630.752.7102
Jane.Beal@wheaton.edu

 
Education

Ph.D. in English, University of California, Davis

M.A. in English, Sonoma State University

B.A. in English, Sonoma State University

Additional coursework completed at the University of California, Berkeley in medieval literature, at the University of Notre Dame in Latin and paleography, and at Wheaton College in biblical Hebrew.

 
Professional and Personal Interests

As a scholar and teacher, my professional interests include medieval literature, the literature of the Bible, and classical mythology.  As a creative writer, I write poetry and work in various genres, including historical fiction and fantasy literature.  See thepoetryplace.wordpress.com.  As Gweneth Paltrow says when playing in “Shakespeare in Love” … “ I must have poetry in my life!”

As a Christian and missionary, I pray for an end to sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking world-wide, and I am working with others at Wheaton College and at JSASSN International toward this goal.  I am also an advocate for Compassion International, a child-sponsorship organization “releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.”  Check out www.compassion.com.  I am a member of Church of the Savior, where I enjoy making music, preaching sermons, and serving children.  See friendsofthesavior.org or just come visit any Saturday evening. 

Last but certainly not least, I am delighted to advise wheatonIMPROV at Wheaton College.  See www.wheatonimprov.com.
 
Courses Taught

Visiting Assistant Professor at Wheaton College
ENGL 101 - Classics of Western Literature
ENGL 102 - Literature of the Modern World
ENGW 103 - Composition and Research
ENGW 104 - Composition and Research
ENGL 215 - Classical and Early British Literature
ENGW 251 - Writing for Educators
ENG 271 - History of the English Language
ENG 495 Memoir Composition and Performance (special studies with    Brendon Culhane)
HNGR 495 Orphans and Sex Trafficking in Moldova (special studies with Rachel Wathen)

*Class devotional series: Hearing God’s Voice, the Healing Power of God, Growing in Faith, Redemption, Waiting on the LORD, Encountering God, Trusting God, Seeking the Kingdom
 
Membership in Professional Societies

Medieval Academy of America (www.medievalacademy.org)
 Medieval Association of the Pacific (medieval.ucdavis.edu/map)
 Medieval Chronicle Society
 Pearl-Poet Society
 Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (www.gustavus.edu/groups/ssbma)
          President, 2007-2008
          Vice-President, 2006-2007
 
Research
My literary research is in the fields of medieval literature, classical mythology, and the literature of the Bible.  In my work on the exquisitely beautiful, fourteenth-century Pearl, I am discovering how the memory of trauma affects the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical interpretations of the poem.  Concurrently, I am collaborating with other scholars on a project about the reception of Moses among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.  I continue to write about the life and works of John Trevisa, a late-medieval priest and scholar who translated numerous works from Latin into English. I am particularly interested in Trevisa's English Polychronicon, a medieval history book originally compiled by Ranulf Higden, and its reception in late-medieval and early modern England.
 
Recent Publications and/or Presentations

Books:

Interpreting Pearl:  Redeeming the Memory of Trauma  (an in-progress monograph)

Illuminating Moses:  A History of Reception (an in-progress collection of academic essays by various contributors)

Translating the Past: Essays on Medieval Literature in Honor of Marijane Osborn, co-edited with Mark Bradshaw Busbee (Arizona Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies - under contract/ manuscript submitted/forthcoming)

John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon (Arizona Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies – under contract/manuscript submitted/forthcoming)

Sanctuary: Poems by Jane Beal (Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2008).

Articles:

“Queen Elizabeth I,” British Writers’ Supplement, ed. Jay Parini (Charles Scribner’s Sons, An Imprint of the Gale Group, forthcoming).

“Translating Caedmon’s Miracle in the Chronicles of the Venerable Bede, Ranulf Higden, and John Trevisa,” Translating the Past: Essays on Medieval Literature in Honor of Marijane Osborn, eds. Jane Beal and Mark Bradshaw Busbee (AMRTS, forthcoming).

“Moses as a Model for Medieval Contemplative Devotional Practices:  Lectio divina, Holy Pilgrimage, and the Biblia pauperum,” Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception, ed. Jane Beal (Brill, forthcoming).

“Julian of Norwich,” British Writers’ Supplement 12, ed. Jay Parini (Charles Scribner’s Sons, An Imprint of the Gale Group, 2006), 149-66.

“Margery Kempe,” British Writers’ Supplement 12, ed. Jay Parini (Charles Scribner’s Sons, An Imprint of the Gale Group, 2006), 167-83.

“Mapping Identity in John Trevisa’s English Polychronicon:  Chester, Cornwall, and the Translation of English National History,” Fourteenth-Century England, Vol. III, ed. William Mark Ormrod (Boydell and Brewer, 2004), 67-82.

“John Trevisa,” British Writers’ Supplement 9, ed. Jay Parini (Charles Scribner’s Sons, An Imprint of the Gale Group, 2003).

“Jonathan Edwards,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, ed. Jay Parini (Oxford University Press, 2003), 432-41.

“The Pearl-Maiden’s Two Lovers,” Studies in Philology 100:1 (Winter 2003), 1-21.
             *Available at http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/studies_in_philology/v100/100.1beal.pdf.