Susan Deskis
Professor
Medieval Literature and Language
Office: RH 324
Email: sdeskis@niu.edu
Educational Background
- Ph.D. Harvard University; 1991
- B.A. Cornell University; 1985
Professional Interests
- Old English literature
- Medieval proverbs
Research Interests
I am a philologist and literary historian studying the transmission of ideas and verbal structures in the literature of the Middle Ages. My research frequently focuses on the proverb as a point of entry into the problems of literary and cultural history, but I am also interested in the larger structures of literary genre.
Selected Publications
Alliterative Proverbs in Medieval England: Language Choice and Literary Meaning. (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2016).
"Proverbs and Structure in Maxims I.A," Studies in Philology 110 (2013), 667-89.
"Exploring Text and Discourse in the Old English Gnomic Poems: The Problem of Narrative,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 104 (2005), 326-44.
“‘The longe man ys zeld wys’: Proverbial Characterization and Langland’s Long Will,” with Thomas D. Hill, Yearbook of Langland Studies 18 (2004), 73-79.
"Jonah and Genre in Resignation B," Medium Ævum 67 (1998), 189-200.
"Beowulf" and the Medieval Proverb Tradition, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 155 (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1996).
"The Gnomic Woman in Old English Poetry," Philological Quarterly 73 (1994), 133-49.
