Julia Simms Holderness

Michigan State University

College of Arts and Letters

French, Classics, and Italian

East Lansing, MI 48824-1112

(517) 353 - 0769 ext. 122

holderne@msu.edu


Education

Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD): Doctorate in Medieval French. Dissertation entitled "In the Muses' Garden: Reminiscence and Consolation in the Works of Christine de Pizan". Co-directors, Professors Stephen G. Nichols and Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet. (1993-2000)

École normale supérieure (Paris, France): "Pensionnaire Étrangère". (1996-1997)

Université de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland): Diplôme d'études supérieures: Au seuil de la Modernié: Co-directors, Professors Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet and Charles Méla. (1995-1996)

Yale College (New Haven, CT): Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. (1989-1993)

Packer Collegiate Institute (Brooklyn, NY). (1975-1989)

Summer Study

Johns Hopkins Mellon Graduate Seminar in the Humanities: an interdisciplinary seminar on ethical and political questions. Director, Professor Frances Ferguson. (1995)

Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH) : Édouard Morot-Sir Institute on French Cultural Studies : a series of lectures and seminars on questions of memory and "memory places" (lieux de mémoire), with a focus on pedagogy and the incorporation of these questions within French cultural studies. (1994)

Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT) : "Scuola Italiana": intensive advanced courses in Italian literature, language, and conversation. (1990)

Professional Experience

Michigan State University : Assistant Professor, French, Classics, and Italian (previously Romance and Classical Languages). (2002-present)

Johns Hopkins Rose Project : Team leader in an initiative to provide on-line access to virtual manuscript copies of the Roman de la rose, along with modern transcriptions and commentary. Particular focus on Getty, ms. Ludwig XV 7. (http://rose.mse.jhu.edu) ( 2005-2006)

Michigan State University : Visiting Assistant Professor, Romance and Classical Languages. (1999-2002)

Languages

French, Italian, German, Latin, Old and Middle French, Provençal.

Publications

"Christine voyeuse : le narcissisme philosophique", in a volume on Christine de Pizan: Femme de sciences, femme de lettres. Edited by Juliette Dor and Marie-Elisabeth Henneau. Paris: Honoré-Champion. (forthcoming)

"Castles in the Air?: The Prince as Conceptual Artist", in Healing the Body Politic: the Political Thought of Christine de Pizan. Edited by Karen Green and Constant J. Mews. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Press, 2005.

"Feminism and the Fall: Semiramis, Knowledge, and Sin in the Middle Ages and Renaissance", in Essays in Medieval Studies 21 (2004).

"Compilation, Commentary, and Conversation in Christine de Pizan", in Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003).

"Fiction and Truth in Ballad 15 of the Cent balades",  in Contexts and Continuities: Proceedings of the IVth International Colloquium on Christine de Pizan (Glasgow 21-27 July 2000) published in honour of Liliane Dulac (Angus J. Kennedy, Rosalind Brown-Grant, James C. Laidlaw, and Catherine M. Müller, eds.), Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press.

"Christine et ses 'bévues': Sens et portée de quelques assimilations abusives" in Au Champ des escriptures: Actes du IIIe Colloque international sur Christine de Pizan, Lausanne, 18-22 juillet 1998 (Eric Hicks, Diego Gonzalez, and Philippe Simon, eds.), Paris: Honoré-Champion: Études Christiniennes, 2000.

Co-edition of three manuscripts of the Roman de la rose (Baltimore, Walters ms.143, New York, Morgan ms. 948, and Oxford, Bodleian ms. Douce 195) : part of the Johns Hopkins Rose Project, an initiative to provide on-line access to virtual manuscript copies of the Roman de la rose, along with modern transcriptions and commentary. (http://rose.mse.jhu.edu) (1998-2001)

A review of Marilynn Desmond, ed. Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press (Medieval Cultures, Volume 14), 1998 : in Modern Language Notes 114, 4 (September 1999) and on-line in The Medieval Review (February 1999).

Academic Fellowships and Honors

Michigan State University :  Intramural Research Grant Project (IRGP): $20,000 to fund travel, as well as replacement teaching, during a full year of research leave (2004-2005). The project is to advance work on a book tentatively entitled, In the Muses' Garden: The Consolation of Memory in Christine de Pizan. (2003)

Michigan State University : College Fund for International Travel (to Melbourne, Australia) : declined. (2002)

Johns Hopkins University : Dean's Fellowship. (1998-1999)

École normale supérieure : "Pension". (1996-1997)

Université de Genève : "Bourse de la Faculté des Lettres". (1995-1996)

Yale College : Mellon Fellowship, for a study on the notion of auctoritas in the Livre du chemin de long estude of Christine de Pizan. (1993)

Yale College : Richter Fellowship, for the translation of ballads and rondeaux by Christine de Pizan. (1992)

Goethe Institut : Certificate of Proficiency in German language. (1991)

Yale College : Department of Italian : prize for the best translation of a poem: Eugenio Montale's "Alunna delle Muse". (1990)

Lectures

Université de Paris 7 - Denis Diderot: "Christine, Boèce et saint Augustin: La consolation de la mémoire". (July 2006)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI): "Buried Treasure: A Lost Text from the Quarrel of the Romance of the Rose". (May 2006)

Université de Liège (Belgium): "La Philosophie dans le couvent: Une relecture du Dit de Poissy". (January 2005)

Midwest Conference on British Studies (East Lansing, MI): "Falling into the  Vernacular in 12th Century England". (October 2004)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI): "The Naked  Truth in Christine de Pizan". (May 2004)

Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters : Grand Valley State University  (Grand Rapids, MI) : Invited lecture: "The Boundaries of Feminism in the Middle  Ages and Renaissance". (March 2004)

Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) : Illinois Medieval Association: "Affairs of  the Heart: Semiramis and Feminism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance". (February 2004)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI): "The Comedy of Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Knowledge" at the 38th International Congress on Medieval Studies. (May 2003)

Medieval and Renaissance Consortium, Michigan State University: "A New Look at the Prologue to the Advision Cristine". (April 2003)

Illinois Medieval Association, Chicago: "Compilation, Commentary, and Conversation in Christine de Pizan". (February 2003)

Modern Language Association, New York: "Giving as Good as You Get: Advising the Advisors in Late Medieval France". (December 2002)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University: "Christine de Pizan's Castles in the Air" at the 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies. (May 2002)

Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA) : Invited lecture: "The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism and Creation in the Middle Ages". (January 2002)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University: "Compilation as Innovation" at the 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies. (May 2001)

University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) : Invited lecture: "'Writing like a Woman' in the Middle Ages". (February 2001)

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL) : "A Response to Grief: Consolation and Mutation in the Early Thought of Christine de Pizan". (February 2001)

Michigan State University  : Invited lecture: "The Changing Field of Medieval Studies" in Professor Patricia Greene's seminar on Research Methodology and Bibliography in the Romance Languages (ROM800). (October 2000)

University of Glasgow : Invited lecture: "The Widow as Orphan in Ballad 15 of the Cent balades" at the Fourth International Christine de Pizan Symposium. (July 2000)

Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI): "Widowhood as an Intellectual Ideal" at the 35th International Congress on Medieval Studies. (May 2000)

Medieval and Renaissance Consortium, Michigan State University (E. Lansing, MI) : Invited lecture: "Therapeutic Distance in Boethius and Christine de Pizan". (April 2000)

Wayne State University (Detroit, MI) : Invited lecture: "Christine de Pizan and the Consolation of Feminine Writing". (November 1999)

Université de Lausanne : Invited lecture: "Les 'coquilles' de Christine: Des dédoublements délibérés?" at the "Troisième colloque international des amis de Christine de Pizan". (July 1998)

Université de Genève : Invited lecture: "De Guillaume de Conches à Christine de Pizan: Une esquisse des gloses sur les scenicae meretriculae de Boèce" at an international colloquium on "Les pratiques du commentaire: 1300-1600". (June 1996)

Service

Michigan State University: Convener of the Medieval/Renaissance Forum. (2004- present)

Michigan State University: Steering Committee for the design and proposal of the Research Cluster for Global Literary and Cultural Studies. (2004-present)

Michigan State University: Arranged a departmental lecture by Tracy Adams  (University of Auckland, NZ): "Faux Semblant Goes A-Maying: Confession as  Deception in the Romance of the Rose"; the lecture supplemented a graduate seminar  on the Romance of the Rose. (February 2004)

Michigan State University Libraries: Friday Night Film Series: lectured on and led a discussion of Carl DreyerÕs 1928 masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc (by  invitation). (September 2003)

French MA program revisions. With the help of colleagues, I drafted a set of changes to the French MA Program, and steered them successfully through the University approval process. (Summer-Fall 2003)

Michigan State University: Reader for a dissertation on "The Court Book of Mende" by Jan Bulman (History). (Summer 2003)

Arranged a departmental lecture on medieval epistolarity by Katherine Kong (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor); the lecture supplemented a graduate seminar on amorous dialogue in the Middle Ages. (April 2003)

IRGP proposal evaluator. (Fall 2003)

Michigan State University: Reader for a dissertation on female Pgymalion figures in French literature by Vicki Devries (French). (2002-present)

Michigan State University: Center for Integrative Arts and Humanities Advisory Committee. (2002-2004)

Michigan State University: faculty mentor for a local high school student's  job-shadow (Jessica Walsh). (2002)

Michigan State University: Advisor to the undergraduate Société française: the group promotes French language and culture in the region, tutoring local schoolchildren  and sponsoring French music, food, and film fests. (2001-present)

Michigan State University: Curriculum development for the undergraduate and  graduate programs in French. Greater emphasis is now placed on the cultural and  historical context of literary production, and on the legacy of Francophone, as well  as French, literature. (1999-present)

Michigan State Univerity: Curriculum development for a proposed Freshman course  on The Mediterranean World. An interdisciplinary look at the culture and history of  the Mediterranean Basin, from the great empires of the ancient world to the current  conflicts between North and South. (1999-present)

Michigan State University: Reader for a dissertation on "The Reception of Christine  de Pizan in 15th Century England" by Dominique Tieman (English). (1999-2002)


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