Jordan Kirk

Associate Professor of English; On leave for the 2020-2021 academic year

Jordan.Kirk@pomona.edu

Office:

Crookshank Hall

203

(909) 607-8358

With Pomona since:

2013

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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

“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

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