Bruce Holsinger

Education: Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University; MA in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from University of Minnesota; BMusA in clarinet performance from University of Michigan

Research interests: Bruce Holsinger specializes in musical and literary relations in the European Middle Ages, with particular interests in liturgical studies, the history of sexuality, and the premodern roots of modern critical thought

Bruce Holsinger specializes in musical and literary relations in the European Middle Ages, with particular interests in liturgical studies, the history of sexuality, and the premodern roots of modern critical thought. His first book, Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer (Stanford UP, 2001), won the AMS's Philip Brett Award, the Modern Language Association's Prize for a First Book, and the Medieval Academy of America's John Nicholas Brown Prize. His second book, The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory (U of Chicago P, 2005), explores the shaping role of medievalism and medieval studies in the work of Georges Bataille, Pierre Bourdieu, Roland Barthes, and other members of the critical generation in postwar France. Articles and review essays have appeared in Speculum, Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music, GLQ, Journal of Medieval Latin, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, and elsewhere. His current projects include a book on post-9/11 medievalism and the rhetoric of international relations as well as a very long-term project, The Work of God: Liturgical Culture and Vernacular Writing in England, 650-1550, examining the institutional and aesthetic impact of liturgy on the history of musical and literary writing from the Venerable Bede to the Reformation. He has held or currently holds research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.