SunHee Kim Gertz
Professor of English; Director of Graduate Studies in English
Department of English
Clark University
Worcester, MA 01610-1477
Phone: 508.793.7126
Email: sgertz@clarku.edu
Education
B.A. Carnegie Mellon University, 1973
M.A. State University of New York-Binghamton, 1977
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1983
Brief Biography
Professor Gertz’s research and publications are centered in western European literature in the late Middle Ages (12th to 14th centuries). In particular, she works with Old French, Middle High German, Latin, Middle English, and Italian narratives and poetry, using literary, semiotic, and rhetorical theory (classical, medieval, and modern). Having worked on the structures of history, memory, semiotic theory, and comtemplative practice, Professor Gertz has turned to researching the narrative structures of power. Her recent publications reflect this shift, including: an article on the Black Prince's staging ofhimself as King Arthur in Speaking Pictures: The Visual, Verbal Nexus of Dramatic Performance, published by Farleigh Dickinson University Press and edited by the English Department's own Virginia Vaughan along with her colleagues Ferrando Cioni and Jacqueline Bessell; a journal article entitled "Fame and Politics: The Persuasive Poetics of Leadership," forthcoming in Semiotica; another forthcoming anthology article tentatively titled, "Das Wunder von Barack Obama: Recuperating Myths to Renew in Obama's Race Speech and Sönke Wortmann's Film on the 1954 Win," and a book that came out with Palgrave Macmillan Press, Visual Power and Fame in René d' Anjou, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Black Prince. The topics of her classes change each year to reflect some of her current work. Consequently, several of her students have participated in confernces, delivering papers written under her supervision.
Current Research and Teaching
Since third grade, I knew I would be a professor. I just didn't know of what. In fact, I didn't know which field would become my area of specialization until my first year of Ph.D. studies. Moving from Chemistry to Philosophy to Art to Literature, I finally decided on Comparative Literature with a focus in western European medieval studies. The field allows me to read fascinating texts in various languages, to work with theory (my favorite areas are semiotic and rhetorical theories), and to puzzle over an ever-increasing list of questions that also take my areas of interest into account (even chemistry in the form of alchemy) in a profession I've always wanted to pursue.
Fortunately, teaching helps ground my scholarship; indeed, the two are absolutely integrated. I think that, my scholarship and interests serve as a locus--a place, a text--where students and I can converse, learn, pursue knowledge, and hopefully, interest others in that pursuit. Students who work with me learn not only how to discuss their views, but also how important it is to write effectively in order to think well and to re-write again and again in order to tease nuances out of complex thoughts. Whether we're working on Chaucer and other medieval authors, on poems or films and semiotic theory, or on Eastern and Western thinkers who've written about contemplative practice, we not only learn contextualizing facts, become acquainted with literary texts and philosophical thought, and analyze important themes, we also try to understand how these diverse bits of knowledge may very well be relevant to our lives.
Especially in these times, when external demands seemingly mercilessly dictate our pace, advertising colors our self-perceptions and relationships, and even university life requires more focus on quite a few professional concerns, it's necessary to have just such a locus so we may stop, think, and reflect, to (even though it may sound a bit dated) cultivate wisdom.
Recent Publications
My publications, five books and over twenty articles along with nine other short pieces, reflect this kind of interdisciplinary focus. The most recent of these, an anthology on semiotic theory, was co-edited by a colleague in Psychology and a M.A. student from our own English Department. My most recent book looks at the Black Prince and René d'Anjou, two late medieval leaders, through their writing and the lens of Geoffrey Chaucer's House of Fame--it begins, though in our own times by drawing paradigms from recent political events.
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2010: Visual Power and Fame in René d'Anjou, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Black Prince New York: Palgrave Macmillan. |
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2007: Semiotic Rotations: Modes of Meaning in Cultural Worlds: Information Age Publishing. |
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2003: Echoes and Reflections: Memory and Memorials in Ovid and Marie de France. New York: Rodopi. |
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2001: Chaucer to Shakespeare, 1337-1580. New York: Palgrave. |
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1996: Poetic Prologues: Medieval Conversations with the Literary Past: Klosterman. |
