Dr. Gale Sigal

Professor of English

Contact

  • Office: C107 Tribble Hall
  • Phone: (336) 758-5388
  • Email: sigal@wfu.edu

Degrees

  • PhD Graduate Center, City University of New York
  • Certificate in Latin, Greek and Latin Institute, City University of New York, 1980
  • MA Fordham University
  • BA City College of New York

Areas of Interest

  • Medieval Poetry
  • The Legend of Arthur
  • British Victorian Literature
  • Medievalism
  • Chaucer
  • Middle English Poetry
  • Translation Studies
  • The History of Emotions

Courses Taught at Wake Forest

  • First Year Seminar The Chivalric Spirit
  • Transformations
  • Otherworlds
  • ENG 111 Composition
  • ENG 150 Literature Interprets the World: Innovation and the Individual Genius
  • ENG 160 Introduction to Literature
  • ENG 165  Masterpieces of British Literature
  • ENG 265 Gateway to the English Major: Middle Ages – 18th Century
  • ENG 712 Studies in Medieval Literature
  • ENG 310/HUM 320 Perspectives on the Middle Ages: Medieval Constructs of Gender, Race, and Class
  • The Game of Encounters: Love, Laughs and Tears in Medieval Culture and Literature
  • ENG 311 The Legend of Arthur
  • ENG 312 Medieval Poetry: Classics of the High Middle Ages
  • ENG 315 Chaucer

Selected Publications

  • Managing Editor, The Once and Future Classroom. A TEAMS Publication. http://once-and-future-classroom.org/, Fall 2014- present 
  • Contributing Editor, Boccaccio Veneto: 700 Years of Cultural Crossing in the Mediterranean. Contributing Editor, Roberta Morosini, Luciano Formoso, eds. Rome,    Italy: Aracne Press, 2015
  • Co-Editor, The Year’s Work in Medievalism, with E. L. Risden and Richard Utz. SMART (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Texts), Vol. 29 (2014). https://sites.google.com/site/theyearsworkinmedievalism/all-issues/29-2014
  • “At What Price Arthur? Medieval Studies and the Medieval in the United States” In American/Medieval: Nature and Mind in Cultural Transfer. Transatlantic Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Culture  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, in press).
  • “Chaucer’s Crypt: The Lying Author and Narrator of the Troilus.” In Boccaccio veneto. Roberta  Morosini, Gale Sigal and Luciano Formoso, eds. Rome, Italy: Aracne Press, Fall 2015.
  • Studies in the Age of Chaucer, a publication of the New Chaucer Society. Bibliographer for Chaucer Review, Vol. 38 (2003), nos. 1 and 2 (Fall 2015).
  • Erotic Dawn-songs of the Middle Ages: Voicing the Lyric Lady. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
  • Voices in Translation: The Authority of ‘Olde Bookes’ in Medieval Literature. With Deborah Sinnreich-Levi. New York: AMS Press, 1992.
  • Assistant Editor, The Collected Letters of William Morris, Volume II (1881-1888), Ed. Norman Kelvin. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Research Assistant, Volume I (1848-1880). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
  • “Reis glorios: A Commentary.” In Teaching Medieval Lyric with Modern Technology: An NEH Project (CD-Rom). Margaret Switten, Director, Mount Holyoke College, 2000.
  • “Troubadours, Trouvères and Trobairitz.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography: The Literature of the French and Occitan Middle Ages. Eds., Ian Laurie and Deborah Sinnreich-Levi. Columbia, S.C.: Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc., Spring 1999.
  • A more extensive publication list is in her CV. 

Additional Professional Information

PARTIAL CURRICULUM VITAE

Gale Sigal
Department of English
336.758.5388; sigal@wfu.edu

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D, English, Graduate Center of the City University of New York n 1985
    • Primary Field: Medieval Literature (Comparative); Secondary Field: British Victorian Literature
  • Certificate in Latin, City University of New York Greek and Latin Institute, 1980
  • M.A., English, Fordham University, Bronx, NY n 1980
  • B.A. cum laude, The City University of New York n 1975
  • TEACHING and ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS
  • Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. 1987-present:
    • Acting Director, Undergraduate Studies, English Department, Fall 2015, 2013-14
    • Founding Co-Director, Interdisciplinary Certificate MA Program in Medieval Studies, 2008 – 2014
    • Chair, English Department n  2000 – 2004
    • Zachary T. Smith Professor of Humanities  n  1998-2002
    • Full Professor 1998 – Present
    • Zachary T. Smith Associate Professor of Humanities  n  1995-1998
    • Director, Graduate (MA) Program  n  1992-1998, 2003-04
    • Associate Professor n  1992-1995
    • Founding Co-Director, Medieval Studies Program n  1990-2014
    • Founding Co-Director, Medieval Studies Group  n  1987-2014
    • Assistant Professor  n  1987-1992
  • St. Peter’s College, Oxford, UK: professor, 2000-2003, St. Peter’s College, Medieval and Environmental Studies Summer Program, Interdisciplinary Seminar, “The Matter of Britain”
    • Liaison 1990-2000; 2004-present
  • Yeshiva University, NY: Visiting Assistant Professor 1986-1987
  • City University of New York, NY: Visiting Assistant Professor, Adjunct Lecturer n  1982-1986

AWARDS, GRANTS, HONORS

Internal WFU

Research and Publication Grant, Boccaccio Veneto, 2014-16

“American/Medieval. Rethinking Medieval: American Medieval in Interdisciplinary perspective,” a grant from Wake Forest Humanities Institute, 2013-2014.

Innovative Teaching Grant $1,200 (Teaching and Learning Center), spring 2011 

Reynolds Research Leave for Senior Faculty, Wake Forest University, 2010-2011

Innovative Teaching Grant $2,000 (Teaching and Learning Center), spring 2009  

Seminar Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship, $1,500, spring 2009

Zachary T. Smith Associate Professor, Professor of Humanities, 1995-2000

Reynolds Research Leave for Senior Faculty, Wake Forest University, 2004-2005

Reynolds Research Leave for Senior Faculty, Wake Forest University, Spring 1998.

TIAA-CREF Summer Faculty Fellow, July 1997.

Wake Forest University, summer research grants, 1988-1997

Wake Forest University, Junior Faculty Reynolds Research Leave, spring 1991.

External, National

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “The Grail and the Rose,” Stanford University, 1991.

Mellon grant for the development of interdisciplinary medieval courses, with Gillian Overing.

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “The Medieval Lyric,” Mount Holyoke College, 1987.

Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities, 1982.

Musurillo Memorial Scholarship, Summer Latin Institute, Graduate School, CUNY, 1980.

CUNY Graduate Center Graduate Research Assistantships, 1980-1985.

Fordham University Graduate Assistantship, 1979-1980

Publications

BOOKS

  • Boccaccio Veneto: 700 Years of Cultural Crossing in the Mediterranean. Roberta Morosini, Gale Sigal, Luciano Formoso, Eds. Rome, Italy: Aracne Press, Summer, 2015.
  • Erotic Dawn-songs of the Middle Ages: Voicing the Lyric Lady. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1996.
  • Voices in Translation: The Authority of ‘Olde Bookes’ in Medieval Literature. With Deborah Sinnreich- Levi. New York: AMS Press, 1992.
  • The Collected Letters of William Morris, Volume II (1881-1888), Assistant Editor; ed. Norman Kelvin. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Research Assistant, Volume I (1848 – 1880). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

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EDITORSHIPS

 Managing Editor, The Once and Future Classroom, a TEAMS publication (Consortium for the Study of the Middle Ages). Fall 2014-present

Co-Editor, The Year’s Work in Medievalism, with E. L. Risden and Richard Utz. SMART (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Texts), Vol. 29 (2014). https://sites.google.com/site/theyearsworkinmedievalism/all-issues/29-2014

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ESSAYS, CHAPTERS, AND ENTRIES  

“At What Price Arthur? Medieval Studies and the Medieval in the United States” In American/Medieval: Nature and Mind in Cultural Transfer. Transatlantic Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Culture  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, in press).

“Chaucer’s Crypt: The Lying Author and Narrator of the Troilus.” In Boccaccio veneto. Roberta  Morosini, Gale Sigal and Luciano Formoso, eds. Rome, Italy: Aracne Press, Fall 2015. 

Studies in the Age of Chaucer, a publication of the New Chaucer Society. Bibliographer for Chaucer Review, Vol. 38 (2003), nos. 1 and 2 (Fall 2015).

“Voicing Silenced Rituals: The Unearthing of the Life-Story of Arthurian Legend By Helaine Newstead (1906-1981).”In Women Medievalists of the Academy. Ed. Jane Chance. Madison:  University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.    

“The Alba Lady.” In The Dictionary of Medieval Women. Ed. Nadia Margolis. Routledge, 2004        

“’Reis glorios’: A Commentary.” In Teaching Medieval Lyric with Modern Technology: NEH    Project (CD-Rom).  Margaret Switten, Director  Margaret Switten, Director, Mount Holyoke College, 2000.

“Troubadours, Trouvères and Trobairitz.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography: The Literature of    the French and Occitan Middle Ages. Eds., Ian Laurie and Deborah Sinnreich-Levi.  Columbia, S.C.: Bruccoli Clark L Layman, Inc., 1999.

“The Alba Lady, Sex-roles and Social Roles.” In Reconstructive Polyphony: Studies in the Rhetorical Poetics of the Middle Ages. Eds., John M. Hill and Deborah Sinnreich-Levi. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000, 221-240.

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards, Olivia Hill, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Mary Somerville. In Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. Revised edition. Eds., Paul and June Schlueter. East Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

“Courted in the Country: The Precarious Place of the Lady in the Medieval Lyric Landscape.”  In  Text and Territory. Eds., Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles. Philadelphia: University of  pennsylvania Press,   Spring 1998, 185-206.

“A Medievalist’s Glimpse into the Late Twentieth-century World of Pensions.” The Participant: Quarterly News Magazine for TIAA-CREF participants.  Feb. 1998. 

Biographical entries of Olivia Hill, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Mary Somerville. In Encyclopedia of  British Women Writers. 2nd edition.  Edited by Katarina Wilson and Paul and June Schlueter. N.Y.: Garland,1997.

Review of the Power of Women: A Topos in Medieval Art and Literature by Susan L. Smith   (University of   Pennsylvania Press, 1995) In Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997): 310-315.

“The Pit or the Pedestal?: The Dichotomization of the Lady in Troubadour Lyric.”  The Romanic  Review. 84 March 1993:109-142.

“Allen Mandelbaum, The Dancing Master: A Profile” Wake Forest Magazine. February 1991, 12-16.

“Benighted Love in Troy: Dawn and the Dual Negativity of Love in Chaucer’s Troilus.”  In Voices in Translation: The Authority of ‘Olde Bookes’ in Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of     Helaine Newstead. Eds., Deborah Sinnreich-Levi and Gale Sigal. New York: AMS Press, 1992, 191-206.

“‘Reis glorios’: An Inverted Alba?” Medieval Perspectives IV-V (1989-90): 185-95.

“The Poetics of Dismemberment: Eros and Identity in the Medieval Dawn-Song,” Tenso 5 (1990): 133-52.

Essays on Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards, Olivia Hill, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Mary Somerville. In Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. Eds., Paul and June Schlueter. N.Y.: Garland, 1988.

Commentaries on Giraut de Bornelh’s “Reis glorios” “Three Female-Voiced Lyrics,” and Marcabru’s L’autrier jost’una sebissa.” The Medieval Lyric : Anthology I.  Eds. Margaret Switten and Howell Chickering. South Hadly, MA.: Mount Holyoke College, 1988.

“Dignity and Desire: The Alba Poet’s Liberation of the Courtly Lady,” Papers on Romance Literary Relations: The Creation of Female Voices by Male Writers in Romance Literatures. Brockport: SUNY,1987: 9-22.

Translator, “Reis glorios,” “S’anc fui belha ni prezada,” “Entre moi et mon amin,” “Owê, sol aber mir iemer me,” “Quan lo rossinhols escria,” “En un vergier.” Humanities II Sourcebook.  Ed. Sealy Ann Gilles. N.Y.: New York  University Press, 1987.

“The Rule of Pleasure: Chastity as Conquest in Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes,” Mid-Hudson Language Studies, 7 (1984): 19-28

m Aevum Monographs (2010) 

American Association of University Professors, WFU Branch, President, 2009-10; 2007-2008, VP (2005-2007), Secretary (2004-2005), Treasurer (2003-2004), member, 1987-present