Women's Studies Program

SunHee Kim Gertz 

SunHee Kim Gertz

Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies in English

Department of English
Clark University
Worcester, MA 01610-1477

office phone: 508-793-7126
email: sgertz@clarku.edu


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).  Her recent publications include a monograph on memory in the poetry of Ovid and the Old French poet, Marie de France; an article on spatial metaphors in the writings of the Middle High German mystic, Meister Eckhart, and the Japanese Zen priest, Dogen; and a volume on semiotic theory which she co-edited with Jaan Valsiner and her M.A. student Jean-Paul Breaux, who was also able to attend a conference on the subject with the two other editors in Luxembourg.  She is currently working on a fourth monograph, involving Chaucer, Edward the Black Prince and King René the Good.  The topics of all her classes change each year to reflect some aspect of her current work.  Many of her students have participated in national and international conferences, 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 PhD 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, four 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.  Currently, I'm working on a fifth book, which 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.  For more information about my work, please visit my Active Learning and Research pages.

 

1996: Poetic Prologues: Medieval Conversations with the Literary Past: Klosterman.

   Echoes and Reflections: Memories and Memorials in Ovid and Marie de France

2003: Echoes and Reflections: Memory and Memorials in Ovid and Marie de France. New York: Rodpi.

From Chaucer to Shakespeare, 1337-1580

2001: Chaucer to Shakespeare, 1337-1580. New York:  Palgrave.

Semiotic Rotations: Modes of Meaning in Cultural Worlds

2007: Semiotic Rotations: Modes of Meaning in Cultural Worlds: Informatin Age Publishing.