Professor Thornbury received her BA in English from Harvard before undertaking post-graduate studies in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, where she received her MA and DPhil. Her 2014 monograph, Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England, combines historical, literary and linguistic evidence from Old English and
Latin in order to create a new, more complete picture of pre-Conquest English poets. Professor Thornbury’s book reflects her ongoing interest in lexicography, punning, the mechanics of poetic inspiration, and translations from Latin into Old English. She has published in such journals as Neophilologus, Anglo-Saxon England, and New Medieval Literatures. Recent articles include “Lyric Form, Subjectivity, and Consciousness” in A Companion to British Literature (2013), and “Building with the Rubble of the Past: The Old English Translator of the Gospel of Nicodemus and his Flawed Source” in Anglo-Saxon Traces (2011). Her new book project focuses on Anglo-Saxon aesthetic categories, and the effects of scarcity on texts and narratives in early England. Professor Thornbury is currently Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.