Jordan Kirk

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

Office:

203

With Pomona Since: 2013

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

Expertise