Jason Jacobs

Dr. Jason Jacobs is Associate Professor of Literature and Chair of the Department of English Literature. His research interests include vernacular narrative poetry in Old French and Italian from the High and Late Middle Ages; epic studies; lyric poetry; premodern gender and sexuality; literary theory (especially psychoanalysis, feminist theory, and queer theory); and contemporary queer politics, representation, and theory. At Roger Williams University he has taught French and Italian language courses at all levels; French literature courses from the pre- and early-modern periods; and general education courses at both the freshman and senior levels. Part of the founding faculty of RWU’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Dr. Jacobs has also taught a capstone research seminar in Gender & Sexuality Studies. Dr. Jacobs served from 2015-2021 as Associate Dean of General Education and from 2021-2023 as Dean of Undergraduate Studies before returning to full-time teaching and research. In January 2024, he joined the journal postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies as co-editor-in-chief.

Publications:

“Gut Feelings: on the chansons de geste’s visceral aesthetic.” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 14.1 (2023).

“An Excess of Love.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 7.1 (2020).

“Raising Gays: On Glee, Queer Kids, and the Limits of the Family.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 20.3 (2014).

“Galiziella’s Escape: Interconfessional Erotics and Love Between Knights in the AspremontTradition.” California Italian Studies 4.2 (2013). (forthcoming)

“An Inheritance of Violence: Patrimony, Vassal Service, and Conquest in the Charroi de Nîmes.” Exemplaria 24.4 (2012).     

“Ports of Call: Boccaccio’s Alatiel in the Medieval Mediterranean” co-authored with Sharon Kinoshita. The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37.1 (2007).

Reviews: 

Luke Sunderland, Old French Narrative Cycles: Heroism between Ethics and Morality. Romanic Review (forthcoming).

Michael A. H. Newth, trans., Heroines of the French Epic: A Second Selection of Chansons de Geste. H-France 15.23 (February 2015).

Madeleine Tyssens, “La Tierce geste qui molt fist a prisier”: études sur le cycle des Narbonnais.The Medieval Review (online).

Margaret Jewett Burland, Strange Words: Retelling and Reception in the Medieval Roland Textual Tradition. Modern Philology 109.2 (2011).

Courses taught:

ENG 220: Literary Analysis
CORE 104: Literature, Philosophy, and the Examined Life
CORE 462: Sexual Identities
FREN 201-202: Intermediate French
FREN 310: Advanced French Grammar & Composition
FREN 311: Advanced French Conversation
FREN 338: French Literary Tradition I
FREN 350: Special Topics: Medieval Literature & Courtly Love
FREN 350: Special Topics: 17th Century French Theater
GSS 420: Gender & Sexuality Studies Seminar
ITAL 101-102: Elementary Italian
ITAL 201-202: Intermediate Italian

Memberships:

Modern Language Association
Medieval Academy of America
Société Rencesvals for the Study of the Romance Epic