Thomas Hahn (born 1946) is an American professor of medieval literature and English who has taught since 1973 at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. After undergraduate studies at Fordham, he completed a Ph.D. at UCLA in 1974. He is especially known for his work on medieval European travel narratives, race in pre-modern Europe, and the modern reception of Robin Hood. He has advised over three dozen Ph.D. students during his fifty years at Rochester. Hahn's interest in medieval English literature, as well as its intersection with popular culture, is reflected both in his publications and in the conferences he has organized.

Career

Becoming an assistant professor of English at the University of Rochester in 1973, Hahn was promoted to associate professor in 1979 and full professor in 1993. Hahn edited a collection of the medieval poems about

Sir Gawain Gawain ( ), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and one of the premier Knights of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalch ...

for the TEAMS Middle English Texts Series, ''Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales'', in 1995. His work with the Middle English Texts Series and the Chaucer Bibliographies has been supported with grants from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

. Hahn was the editor of ''Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression, and Justice''. The book published conference proceedings from a 1997 conference at Rochester that was billed as the first devoted entirely to

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

and related characters. He also co-edited a festschrift for

Russell Peck Russell Peck was an American composer born in Detroit on January 25, 1945 to Thorland (Tom) and Margaret (Carlson) Peck. He died in Greensboro, North Carolina on March 1, 2009, at the age of 64. Life and career Peck's early music education was ...

, ''Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck''; and has been a leading contributor to advances in digital projects at the University's Rossell Hope Robbins Library. Most recently, he edited a volume of essays titled ''A Cultural History of Race in the Middle Ages'', the second volume of a six-volume series. In 2022, Hahn was honored with a festschrift co-edited by former Ph.D. students Valerie Johnson and Kara McShane entitled ''Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn''.

References

External links

Thomas Hahn's faculty page Hahn's CVBBC article on Robin HoodConversation: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves…and ScreenRobin Hood - In Our Time: History (apple podcasts)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hahn, Thomas 1946 births Living people American academics of English literature University of Rochester faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni Fordham University alumni Chaucer scholars American medievalists Robin Hood