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Jordan Kirk

Associate Professor of English; On leave for the 2020-2021 academic year
Office:
Crookshank Hall
203

With Pomona Since: 2013
Jordan Kirk
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  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Jordan Kirk works on limit-experiences of knowledge in the Middle Ages: unintelligibility, trance, hallucination, spectacle, initiation. He is completing a book, Medieval Nonsense, on “non-significative utterance” in medieval poetry, logic, devotion, and sacramental theology. His next book is on the survival of ancient techniques of ecstasy in late medieval poetry.

    Research Interests

    • Middle English literature (1100–1500)
    • The history of linguistic ideas
    • Nonsense, proof, divination, ritual
    • Continental philosophy
    • Chaucer
  • Work

    Work

    • “The Hideous Noise of Prayer: The Cloud of Unknowing on the Syllable-Word.” Exemplaria 28.2 (2016): 97–117.
    • “What Separates the Birth of Twins.” Glossator 5 (2011): 1-18.
  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D. Princeton University

    M.A. Princeton University

    B.A. New York University

    Recent Courses Taught

    • The Canterbury Tales
    • Medieval Nonsense
    • Medieval Proof
    • The Spell of Reality
    • Literary Interpretation
    • Medieval Drugs