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David Raybin

Professor of English

Office: 3761 - Coleman Hall
Phone: 217-581-6980
Email: draybin@eiu.edu


David Raybin's Vita

Office Hours:  TW 9:30-11:30

David Raybin teaches a variety of subjects in early British and world literature. His honors at Eastern include being named Distinguished Faculty Member in 2011, Professor Laureate in 2002, and Distinguished Honors Faculty Member in 1993. He has written extensively on Chaucer and other medieval subjects. His most recent book, Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches (edited with Susanna Fein), was published by Penn State UP in 2010. His earlier books are Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in the Canterbury Tales (1991; with Susanna Fein and Peter Braeger), and Closure in the Canterbury Tales: The Role of the Parson's Tale (2000; with Linda Tarte Holley). He is coeditor of The Chaucer Review: A Journal of Medieval Studies and Literary Criticism.

David Raybin has for many years organized the annual EIU Literature Conference, and in the summers of 2008 and 2010 he traveled to London and Canterbury to direct NEH Seminars for School Teachers on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  He will return to London to direct another NEH Seminar on the Canterbury Tales in the summer of 2012.

Education

B.A.  Columbia College (English, 1972)
M.A.  Columbia University (English and Comparative Literature, 1974)
Ph.D.  Columbia University (Comparative Medieval Literature, 1981)

Research

Medieval studies, Chaucer.

Publications

Books
Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches. University Park PA: Penn State University Press, 2010. (Volume of eleven essays, edited with Susanna Fein.)
Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of the Parson’s Tale. Kalamazoo MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000. (Volume of ten essays and an annotated bibliography, edited with Linda Tarte Holley.)
Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in The CanterburyTales. Kalamazoo MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991. (Volume of ten essays, edited with Susanna G. Fein and Peter C. Braeger.)

Recent Book Chapters
“Teaching Teachers: Chaucer, Ethics, and Romance.” In Chaucer and Religion. Ed. Helen Phillips. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2010. Pp. 189-95.
“Critical Approaches.” In A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture c.1350 - c.1500. Ed. Peter Brown. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing., 2006. Pp. 9-24.
“Poetry and Play in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Pardoner’s Tale.” In Drama, Narrative and Poetry in the CanterburyTales. Ed. Wendy Harding. Toulouse, France: University Press of Toulouse, 2003. Pp. 213-26.
“‘Manye been the weyes’: The Flower, Its Roots, and the Ending of The Canterbury Tales.” In Closure in The Canterbury Tales (2000). Pp. 11-43.
“Annotated Bibliography of Scholarship on the Parson’s Tale.” In Closure in The Canterbury Tales (200). Pp. 209-52.
 
Recent Journal Articles
“‘Goddes Instrumentz’: Devils and Free Will in the Friar’s and Summoner’s Tales.” The Chaucer Review 46 (2011): 93-110.
“Muslim Griselda: The Politics of Gender and Religion in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s The Girl from the Coast.” Exemplaria 21 (2009): 180-201.
“Chaucer as a London Poet: A Review Essay.” Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 21-29.
“Chaucer and Aesthetics” (with Susanna Fein). The Chaucer Review 39 (2005): 225-33.

Conference Presentations

Select Conference Papers
“The French Fabliaux in MS Harley 2253.” International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS). Kalamazoo MI, May 2011.
“Chaucer on Dickens’s Hearth.” Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society (NCS). Siena, Italy, July 2010.
“Torture in the CanterburyTales.” ICMS. Kalamazoo MI, May 2010.
“Canterburyin the Cornfield.” NCS. Swansea, Wales, July 2008.
“Peter G. Beidler and The Chaucer Review.” ICMS. Kalamazoo, MI, May 2008.
“Some Reflections on Chaucer as a London Writer.” Illinois Medieval Association Annual Meeting (IMA). Charleston IL, February 2007.
“Chaucer, Pramoedya, Religion, Race.” Robert W. Hanning: Past, Present, Future Conference. ColumbiaUniversity. October 2003.
“‘Goddes Instrumentz’: Demons and Devils in the Canterbury Tales.” Revisiting Chaucer and Christianity Conference. Canterbury, England, July 2003.
“The Girl from the Coast: A Muslim Griselda from Modern Indonesia.” ICMS. Kalamazoo MI, May 2003.
“Genre, Gender, and Sexualities.” NCS. London, England, July 2000.

Funding & Grants

National Endowment for the Humanities
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Summer Seminar director, 2011 (with Susanna Fein). London, UK.
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Summer Seminar director, 2009 (with Susanna Fein). London, UK.
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Summer Seminar director, 2007 (with Susanna Fein). London, UK.
“Reading and Study of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.” Study Grant, 1995.
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Summer Institute participant, 1987. University of Connecticut.
“Medieval Feudalism.” Summer Seminar participant, 1986. Universityof California, Berkeley.
“Symbolic Anthropology: A Humanistic Critique.” Summer Seminar participant, 1983. University of Virginia.

lllinois Humanities Council
“Re-encountering Shakespeare,” Major conference grant, 2009.
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Major conference grant, 2008.
EIU Literature Conference. Multi-year grant in support of four annual conferences, 2004-2007.
“Songs and Sonnets: The Love Poetry of John Donne.” Conference grant, 2003.
“Achebe, Conrad, and the Literatures of Africa.” Conference grant, 2002.
“Homer’s Epic World.” Conference grant, 2001.
“Charles Dickens and His World.” Conference grant, 1999.
“Jane Austen and Her World.” Conference grant, 1998.
“Dante in the 1990s.” Conference grant, 1996, with additional funding from Penguin Books.
“Teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Conference grant, 1992.
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.” Conference grant, 1988, with additional funding from Houghton Mifflin.

Community

Professional Position
Editor, The Chaucer Review. A Journal of Medieval Studies and Literary Criticism (with Susanna Fein). A quarterly journal editorially based at Kent State University and Eastern Illinois University. Published by the PennStateUniversityPress. 2001-present

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