William E. Burgwinkle is a UK-based American medievalist and French scholar. He is an emeritus professor in medieval French and Occitan literature at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, an emeritus fellow at King's College, and a former president of the

Society for French Studies The Society for French Studies, or SFS, is the oldest learned association for French Studies in the UK and Ireland. It aims to promote teaching and research in French Studies within higher education. the president is Professor Judith Still. S ...

Early life

Burgwinkle studied at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

, at Boston College, and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

entitled ''The Troubador as Subject: Biography, Erotics and Culture'' in 1988 at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. His early years were spent in Clinton, Massachusetts.

Career

Burgwinkle previously taught at

City College of San Francisco City College of San Francisco (CCSF or City College) is a public community college in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded as a junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local role, enrolling as many as 1 in 35 San Franc ...

, Stanford University, and the

University of Hawai'i at Manoa A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

. He is a Professor in Medieval French and Occitan Literature at King's College, Cambridge. He served as Head of the French Department at the University of Cambridge from 2009 to 2012. His research focuses on

vernacular literature Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people". In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin or Koine Greek. In this context, vernacular literature appeared ...

, especially the Occitan

troubadour A troubadour (, ; ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The tr ...

s, gender and queer theory,

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

, and the history and travels of medieval manuscripts. Burgwinkle was awarded a Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching in 2006.Cambridge University Newsletter, July/August 2006 p. 12. In 2011, he became a knight of the

Ordre des Palmes Académiques A suite, in Western classical music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes; and grew in scope so that by the early 17th century it comprised up to ...

for his contributions to the dissemination of French culture through education.

Publications

* ''Sodomy, Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature, 1050-1230'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004) * ''Love for sale: Materialist Readings of the Troubadour Razo Corpus'' (Garland, 1997) * ''Razos and Troubadour Songs'' (Garland, 1990). * (as co-editor with Glenn Man and Valerie Wayne) ''Significant Others: Gender and Culture in Film and Literature, East and West'' (Hawaii, 1992). * "The Cambridge History of French Literature", co-edited with Nick Hammond and Emma Wilson (Cambridge University Press, 2011) * "Sanctity and Pornography in Medieval culture: on the verge", co-author with Cary Howie (Manchester UP, 2010) * ''Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad''. co-author with Simon Gaunt and Jane Gilbert (Oxford University Press, 2020)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burgwinkle, Bill Living people Stanford University alumni American medievalists Fellows of King's College, Cambridge American literary critics Literary critics of French Queer theorists Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Year of birth missing (living people) University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers