An Early Modern and Medieval scholar, Professor Susan Phillips researches and teaches late medieval and Early Modern literature and culture, Chaucer, Shakespeare, drama, and the history of the book. Her research is particularly focused upon the materiality of the book: exploring how texts were produced, published, circulated, and read. In 2007, she published the important Transforming Talk: The Problem with Gossip in Late Medieval England, which explores the religious, cultural, and literary work of “idle talk” in late medieval England. Professor Phillips has published essays on Chaucer, gossip theory, late medieval pastoral practice, Renaissance dictionaries, medieval multilingualism, and pre-modern pedagogy.
bestsellers taught readers not only how to conjugate verbs and negotiate with foreign merchants, but also how to insult neighbors and chat up chambermaids in up to eight different languages. More than simply entertaining content, these mischievous conversations constitute a new pedagogical practice, as language learning itself undergoes a translation out of the classroom, into the marketplace, and further down the social ladder.