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Gillian Adler

Sarah Lawrence College, Literature, Faculty Member

University of California, Los Angeles, English, Graduate Student

University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies, Graduate Student

Barnard College, English, Undergraduate

Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature, Faculty Member

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Esther Raushenbush Chair in Humanities and Associate Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. Author of Chaucer and the Ethics of Time (Wales, 2022) and co-author of Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life (March 2023). President of the New York Medieval Society. Ph.D., UCLA.
Address: New York, NY

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Books by Gillian Adler

'Introduction' to Chaucer and the Ethics of Time

University of Wales Press, 2022

Chapter 3, 'Time and the Planets' (Adler and Strohm)

Alle Thyng Hath Tyme, 2023

Papers by Gillian Adler

Fearing Fame from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Visionary Metaphors: Sight, Sickness, and Space in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy and Julian of Norwich's Showings. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 46.1 (2020): 53-70.

Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 2020

"Writing History, Writing Trauma" : The Rape of Igerna in the Medieval Brut Narratives. Medieval Feminist Forum 56.3 (2021): 48-72.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 2021

Dante's Cato: Libertà and the Dialectic of Empires in the Purgatorio

Author(s): Adler, Gillian | Abstract: This paper reads Dante’s call for imperial renovatio in the... more Author(s): Adler, Gillian | Abstract: This paper reads Dante’s call for imperial renovatio in the earliest moments of the Purgatorio. Dante’s project allegorizes the search for an ideal temporal empire through the transfiguration of the wayward soul, and uses Cato, the historical figure guarding Purgatory’s terraces, to articulate the sense of urgency with which the empire must be purified of injustice. This paper contends that Cato, a symbol of the political and moral freedom crucial to Dante’s theory of an ideal imperium, is a function of the Commedia’s broader negotiation with contradictory Virgilian and Augustinian historiographical paradigms. Deeply invested in European reform, Dante condemns a past of imperial failure while anticipating spiritual-political redemption. Medieval forms of governance within the Monarchia inform my reading of liberta in Dante’s middle canticle.

Female Intercession and the Shaping of Male Heroism in the Roman d'Eneas and Le chevalier au lion. Medieval Feminist Forum (2013)

Canine Intercessors and Female Religious Metaphor in Sir Gowther. Comitatus 48 (2017): 49-71.

'ȝit þat traytour alls tite teris lete he fall’: Arthur, Mordred, and Tragedy in the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Arthuriana (2015): 3-21.

Conference Presentations by Gillian Adler

'Ad Domum Dei': Hermitage and Homecoming in the Lives of Christina of Markyate and Richard Rolle. NYU. November 5, 2022.

Superior to “a clokke or an abbey orlogge”: Time and Virtue in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale. University of Glasgow. August 22, 2022.

Time-Keeping and Time-Wasting in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Dante's Commedia. New Chaucer Society, University of Durham. July 12, 2022.

Temporal Peregrinations: Dante’s Virgil, Chaucer’s Host, and the Art of Time-Keeping. Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. June 29, 2019.

Igerna’s Instrumentality: Sensationalizing Assault in Medieval Historiography. Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, The University of the South-Sewanee. April 13, 2019.

Theseus’s Loving Distance: Space, Sight, and the Boethian Intertext in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Institute of English Studies, University of London. June 30, 2017.

Canine Intercessors and Female Religious Metaphor in Sir Gowther. NYU. April 15, 2017.

The Vision and Revision of History in Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames. Canterbury Christ Church University. January 12, 2017.

Julian's Boethius: Space and the Ethics of Perspective in The Revelations of Divine Love. Oxford University, UK. January 9, 2016.

Audience and Authority in the South English Legendary 'Life of St Katherine'. Oxford University, UK. December 9, 2014.

'Lokynge' at the Past: Chaucer's Boethianisms and the Vision of History in Troilus and Criseyde. Harvard University. March 15, 2014.

'Introduction' to Chaucer and the Ethics of Time

University of Wales Press, 2022

Chapter 3, 'Time and the Planets' (Adler and Strohm)

Alle Thyng Hath Tyme, 2023

Fearing Fame from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Visionary Metaphors: Sight, Sickness, and Space in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy and Julian of Norwich's Showings. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 46.1 (2020): 53-70.

Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 2020

"Writing History, Writing Trauma" : The Rape of Igerna in the Medieval Brut Narratives. Medieval Feminist Forum 56.3 (2021): 48-72.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 2021

Dante's Cato: Libertà and the Dialectic of Empires in the Purgatorio

Author(s): Adler, Gillian | Abstract: This paper reads Dante’s call for imperial renovatio in the... more Author(s): Adler, Gillian | Abstract: This paper reads Dante’s call for imperial renovatio in the earliest moments of the Purgatorio. Dante’s project allegorizes the search for an ideal temporal empire through the transfiguration of the wayward soul, and uses Cato, the historical figure guarding Purgatory’s terraces, to articulate the sense of urgency with which the empire must be purified of injustice. This paper contends that Cato, a symbol of the political and moral freedom crucial to Dante’s theory of an ideal imperium, is a function of the Commedia’s broader negotiation with contradictory Virgilian and Augustinian historiographical paradigms. Deeply invested in European reform, Dante condemns a past of imperial failure while anticipating spiritual-political redemption. Medieval forms of governance within the Monarchia inform my reading of liberta in Dante’s middle canticle.

Female Intercession and the Shaping of Male Heroism in the Roman d'Eneas and Le chevalier au lion. Medieval Feminist Forum (2013)

Canine Intercessors and Female Religious Metaphor in Sir Gowther. Comitatus 48 (2017): 49-71.

'ȝit þat traytour alls tite teris lete he fall’: Arthur, Mordred, and Tragedy in the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Arthuriana (2015): 3-21.

'Ad Domum Dei': Hermitage and Homecoming in the Lives of Christina of Markyate and Richard Rolle. NYU. November 5, 2022.

Superior to “a clokke or an abbey orlogge”: Time and Virtue in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale. University of Glasgow. August 22, 2022.

Time-Keeping and Time-Wasting in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Dante's Commedia. New Chaucer Society, University of Durham. July 12, 2022.

Temporal Peregrinations: Dante’s Virgil, Chaucer’s Host, and the Art of Time-Keeping. Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. June 29, 2019.

Igerna’s Instrumentality: Sensationalizing Assault in Medieval Historiography. Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, The University of the South-Sewanee. April 13, 2019.

Theseus’s Loving Distance: Space, Sight, and the Boethian Intertext in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Institute of English Studies, University of London. June 30, 2017.

Canine Intercessors and Female Religious Metaphor in Sir Gowther. NYU. April 15, 2017.

The Vision and Revision of History in Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames. Canterbury Christ Church University. January 12, 2017.

Julian's Boethius: Space and the Ethics of Perspective in The Revelations of Divine Love. Oxford University, UK. January 9, 2016.

Audience and Authority in the South English Legendary 'Life of St Katherine'. Oxford University, UK. December 9, 2014.

'Lokynge' at the Past: Chaucer's Boethianisms and the Vision of History in Troilus and Criseyde. Harvard University. March 15, 2014.

The Idea of History in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess. PAMLA, UC Riverside. October 31, 2014.

ȝit þat traytour alls tite teris lete he fall': Arthur, Mordred, and Tragedy in the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Kalamazoo, MI. May 11, 2013.

Spatial Metaphor and the Female Body in Ancrene Wisse. UC Santa Barbara. May 18, 2013.

Chaucer's Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales by Frederick M. Biggs

Medium Aevum, 2022

Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception ed. by Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2016

Gower in Context(s): Scribal, Linguistic, Literary and Socio-historical Readings ed. by Laura Filardo-Llamas, Brian Gastle and Marta Gutiérrez Rodríguez

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2014

<i>The Neighboring Text: Chaucer, Boccaccio, Henryson</i> (review)

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012

Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c. 1100–1330 by Ian P. Wei

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013

Chaucer and the Culture of Love and Marriage. By Cathy Hume. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2013.

An Introduction to the Gawain Poet. By John M. Bowers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2013.

Gower in Context(s): Scribal, Linguistic, Literary and Socio-historical Readings, ed. by Laura Filardo-Llamas, Brian Gastle and Marta Gutierrez Rodriguez. Valladolid: Publicaciones Universidad de Valladolid, 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2014.

Review of Georgiana Donavin, Scribit Mater: Mary and the Language Arts in the Literature of Medieval England. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of American Press, 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2012.

Review of George Edmondson, The Neighboring Text: Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Henryson. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2012.

Review of Elizabeth Elliot, Remembering Boethius: Writing Aristocratic Identity in Late Medieval French and English Literatures. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2014.

Review of Ian P. Wei, Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c. 1100-1330. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2013.