Lori Garner

Lori Garner joined the Rhodes College faculty in Fall 2009. Her teaching and research interests include Old and Middle English literature, the history and structure of the English language, and studies in folklore and oral traditions. Her first book, Structuring Spaces: Oral Poetics and Architecture in Early Medieval England (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), explores the idiomatic and traditional meanings invested in depictions of architecture within Old and Middle English verse. Her second book, Hybrid Healing: Old English Remedies and Medical Texts (University of Manchester Press, 2022), examines Old English charms and remedies within the dual contexts of oral tradition and literate culture.  Additionally, she has published numerous articles on such topics as Old English saints’ lives, medieval carols and proverbs, modern adaptations of medieval texts, approaches to teaching oral traditions, and medieval pilgrimage. She currently serves as Director of the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning, as secretary of the Rhodes faculty, and as faculty sponsor for the English honor society (Sigma Tau Delta), the Rhodes College chapter of HerCampus, the American Sign Language and Deaf Culture Club, and the Dungeons and Dragons Club.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books
Structuring Spaces: Oral Poetics and Architecture in Early Medieval England. Poetics of Orality and Literacy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.

Hybrid Healing: Old English remedies and medical texts. Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2022.

Edited Volume
Festschrift for John Miles Foley. Special issue of Oral Tradition 26.2 (2011). Guest-edited with R. Scott Garner.

Articles and Contributed Chapters

“‘If tradition can be trusted...’: Pilgrimage, Place, and the Legend(s) of an Early English Saint.” Modern Language Review, in press.

“Weapons of Healing: Materiality and Oral Poetics in Old English Remedies and Medical Charms.” Material Remains: Reading the Past in Medieval and Early Modern British Literature. Ed. Andrew James Johnston and Jan-Peer Hartmann. Interventions Series. Ohio State University Press, 2021. 120-144.

“Deaf Studies, Oral Tradition, and Old English Texts.” Exemplaria 29 (2017): 21-40.

“‘Stories which I know to be true’: Oral Tradition, Oral History, and Voices from the Past.” Oral History Review 43.2 (2016): 263-91.

“Rhetoric and Remedies; or, How to Persuade a Plant in Anglo-Saxon England.” Public Declamations: Essays on Medieval Rhetoric, Education, and Letters in Honor of Martin Camargo. Ed. Georgiana Donovan and Denise Stodola. Disputatio. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015. 155-168.

“Swarm in July: Beekeeping Perspectives on the Old English Wið Ymbe Charm.” Festschrift for John Miles Foley. Special issue of Oral Tradition 26 (2011). With Kayla M. Miller. 355-76.

Introduction. Festschrift for John Miles Foley. Special issue of Oral Tradition 26 (2011). Co- authored with R. Scott Garner. 257-64.

“The History and Poetics of Architecture in LaȜamon’s Brut.” Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the History of Philosophy 40 (2011): 179-208.

“Returning to Heorot: Beowulf’s Famed Hall and its Modern Incarnations.” Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27.2 (2010): 157-81.

"Andreas and the Mermedonian Cityscape." Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 53-63.

"The Role of Proverbs in Middle English Narrative." New Directions in Oral Theory. Ed. Mark C. Amodio. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005 255-77.

"Old English Charms in Performance." Oral Tradition 19 (2004): 20-42.

"Medieval Voices." Oral Tradition 18 (2003): 216-18.

"The Art of Translation in the Old English Judith." Studia Neophilologica 73 (2001): 171-83.

"Contexts of Interpretation in the Burdens of Middle English Carols." Neophilologus 84 (2000): 467-82.

"Representations of Speech in the WPA Slave Narratives of Florida and the Writings of Zora Neale Hurston." Western Folklore 59 (2000): 215-31.

With Lynn C. Lewis. "The National Curriculum and the Teaching of Oral Traditions." Teaching Oral Traditions. Ed. John Miles Foley. New York: Modern Language Association, 1998. 403-22. [Rev. Choice36 (1999): 1611].

Shorter Pieces and Reviews

Review: Karkov, Catherine. Imagining Anglo-Saxon England: Utopia, Heterotopia, Dystopia. Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020). Speculum 96.4 (2021), pp. 1186-1188.

Review: Bintley, Michael D. J. Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture. Studies in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020). Journal of English and Germanic Philology 121.2 (2022), pp. 254-56.

Review: Dale, Corinne. The Natural World in the Exeter Book Riddles. Series: Nature and Environment in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: D.S.Brewer, 2017). The Medieval Review, December, 2017.

“Remembering John Miles Foley,” Proceedings of Primer Congreso Internacional Poéticas de la Oralidad. Homenaje a John Miles Foley, Morelia: ENES UNAM. Digital platform.

“Judith.” The Encyclopedia of British and Medieval Literature. Eds. Siân Echard and Robert Rouse. Wiley-Blackwell. 2017. pp. 1104-1106.

“Traditional Metonymy” and “Theme." Dictionary of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media. Edited by Ray Person and Chris Keith. T & T Clark, 2017. pp.418-20; 425-28.

“In Memoriam: John Miles Foley, 1947-2012.” Old English Newsletter. 

Review, with Renée R. Trilling. Ceremonial Culture in Pre-Modern Europe, ed. Nicholas Howe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). Western Folklore 68 (2010): 307-309.

Review: Mark C. Amodio. Writing the Oral Tradition: Oral Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval England.(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005). Journal of English and Germanic Philology 106 (2007): 131-33.

“Oral-Formulaic Theory” and “Ring Composition.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Eds. David Herman, Jahn Manfred, and Marie-Laure Ryan. London: Routledge, 2005.

“Bernie Babcock.” Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives. Ed. Nancy A. Williams. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. 12-13.