Dr. Krista Sue-Lo Twu

Photo of Krista Twu
Professional Title
Department Head; Associate Professor of Medieval & Renaissance Literature; Graduate Faculty, UMN Center for Medieval Studies

WHAT I'M READING RIGHT NOW:

  • The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel (2023)
  • Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World, by Irene Vallejo (trans. Whittle, 2023)
  • The Golden Thread: The Story of Writing, by Ewan Clayton (2013)

WHAT I'M WRITING RIGHT NOW:

  • Easier, Harder, Bastard: An Introduction to Medieval Paleography
  • In the Shadow of the Enlightenment: Disciplinarity before 1700, with Steve Matthews (UMD History), and C.J. Schlitt (U. Oxford).

THE BEST POEM OF ALL TIME:

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requires?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
     (Catullus, Poem 85, ca. 50CE)

Education

Ph.D. in English, University of California, Irvine
Graduate Certificates:
     Paleography & Codicology: University of Notre Dame
     Medieval Latin: University of Notre Dame
M.A. in English, University of California, Irvine
B.A. in English, Latin Minor, University of California, Berkeley

Teaching Interests 

Medieval & Renaissance Literature, Material Book Culture, Comparative Literature, Religious Literature, Critical Theory, Literary History, Codicology, Paleography, Philology.

 

 

Courses

ENGL 1535: King Arthur in Literature, History and Art
ENGL 2535: The Bible in Literature
ENGL 3501: British Literature I (Origins-1800)
ENGL 3222: Shakespeare
ENGL 4312: Chaucer
ENGL 4533: English Literature before 1800 (various topics)
     “Love in the Time of Plague”
     “Mapping the Heavens”
     “Sinners and Saints”
     “Hell: Sin and Punishment in Medieval Literature”
ENGL 4821: History of the English Language
ENGL 4661: Publishing the Middle Ages

Research Interests 

Medieval Literature in Middle English and Latin, Religious Law and Literature, Chaucer, Boethius, Paleography and Codicology.

 

 

 

Publications

“Chaucer,” with Lindsey Simon-Jones and Derrick Pitard, in the Year’s Work in English Studies, Vol. 100 (2021), ed. William Baker and Kenneth Womack. Oxford University Press.

“Chaucer,” with Lindsey Simon-Jones and Derrick Pitard, in the Year’s Work in English Studies, Vol. 99 (2020), ed. William Baker and Kenneth Womack. Oxford University Press.

“Chaucer,” with Lindsey Simon-Jones and Derrick Pitard, in the Year’s Work in English Studies, Vol. 98 (2019), ed. William Baker and Kenneth Womack. Oxford University Press.

Review Article, with Dr. Katie Owens-Murphy: Philip Edward Phillips, Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana. Palgrave McMillan, 2014. Carmina Philosophiae, Vol 23 (2014).

Book Review: Joel C. Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy: Life and Death in Boethius’s Consolation. University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, in Speculum, Vol. 84, No. 4 (Oct. 2009).

Review Article: Mark Miller, Philosophical Chaucer: Love, Sex, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Carmina Philosophiae 15 (2006).

“Chaucer's Vision of the Tree of Life: Crossing the Road with the Rood in the Parson’s Tale,” Chaucer Review 39.4 (2005).

“The Awntyrs off Arthure: Reliquary for Romance,” Arthurian Literature XX (2003).