Melissa Elmes

Melissa Ridley Elmes

Professor, English

McCluer Hall 118
(636) 627-2506
[email protected]

Biographical Information

Dr. Melissa Ridley Elmes (B.A., French, The College of William and Mary; ; M.A., English, Longwood University; MFA, Creative Writing, Lindenwood University; Ph.D., English, University of North Carolina Greensboro) is an interdisciplinary literary historian of the medieval period, with particular emphasis on the 10-15th-century Northern European and British Isles literatures and cultures, including Old/Middle English, Welsh, Irish, Anglo-Norman, and Old Norse/Icelandic. She is an award-winning instructor as well as a high-profile scholar, with recent articles in成人视频疉rthuriana, Year成人视频檚 Work in Medievalism, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium,成人视频疢odern Philology and Medieval Feminist Forum, an edited collection of essays on the fairy Melusine (Brill, 2017) a volume of essays on成人视频疐ood and Feast in Premodern Outlaw Tales成人视频�(Routledge, 2021) and an edited collection on Ethics in the Arthurian Legend (D.S. Brewer, 2023). Dr. Elmes is also a writer of poetry and fiction, and the author of成人视频痶wo books of poetry: Arthurian Things: A Collection of Poems成人视频�(Dark Myth Publications, 2020) and Dreamscapes and Dark Corners (Alien Buddha Press 2023); her creative work has garnered nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Science Fiction Poetry Association成人视频檚 Elgin, Rhysling, and Dwarf Star awards for speculative poetry. She serves on the advisory boards of several scholarly presses and organizations including Medieval Institute Publications成人视频� Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons series, the International Arthurian Society North American Branch, and the Southeastern Medieval Association.

Academic & Research Interests

• Literatures and cultures of the Medieval British Isles and Scandinavia
• Medievalism in popular culture
• Women成人视频檚 and gender studies
• The Arthurian legend
• Robin Hood/ outlawry
• Intersections of gender, violence, and the law
• Monsters and monstrosity
• Alchemy, magic, and esoterica
• Mythology and folklore
• Poetry and poetics
• Fantasy and science fiction
• Critical/creative hybrid writing
• Pedagogy

Courses Taught

Dr. Elmes has taught the following courses:

• Senior Capstone in English Studies
• English Studies Internship
• History of the English Language
• Medieval Afterlives: Modern Receptions of the Medieval
• Medieval Afterlives成人视频擬edieval Women
• Early Modern Literature
• Medieval Literature: 成人视频淰iolence and Trauma, Beowulf to Malory成人视频�
• Medieval Literature: poetry and poetics
• Chaucer
• Mythology and Folklore
• The Arthurian Legend
• Viking Literature
• Celtic Literature (taught face-to-face and online)
• British Literature: Fact, Fiction and Everything In-Between
• The Medieval World
• World Literature to 1500: Faith, War, Traveling, Memory and Commemoration
• Writing for Game Design
• Research and Argumentation/ Composition II
• Global Introduction to Gender Studies
• Applied Interdisciplinary Studies Tutorial/ Internship
• Freshman Seminar: The Global Arthurian Legend
  Publications
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Publications

Select Publications

• Edited Collections
  • 2023 Ethics in the Arthurian Legend. Eds. Melissa Ridley Elmes and Evelyn Meyer. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer.
  • 2021 Food and Feast in Premodern Outlaw Tales. Eds. Melissa Ridley Elmes and Kristin Bovaird – Abbo. New York: Routledge Press. Reviewed in: Robin Hood Scholars: IARHS on the Web
  • 2017 Melusine成人视频檚 Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth. Eds. Misty Urban, Deva Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes. Leiden: Brill. Reviewed in: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Preternature, Mediaevistik, Medieval Feminist Forum.
• Poetry collections
  • 2023 Dreamscapes and Dark Corners. Alien Buddha Press.
  • 2020 Arthurian Things: A Collection of Poems. Apple Valley: Dark Myth Publications.
• Peer-reviewed journal articles
  • 2025 成人视频淪ociety for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and Medieval Studies: Our Institutions, Our Selves; Our Past, and Our Future.成人视频� With Nicole Lopez Jantzen. Speculum 100/1 (January 2025): 79-118.
  • 2023 成人视频淲omen Reading and Women Writing and Men Writing Women Who Read and Write: (Re-) Considering Women’s Literate Practices and the Ethics of Women’s Literacy in Malory’s Morte Darthur.成人视频� Arthuriana 33.2: 84成人视频�103.
  • 2023 成人视频淲hen the Digital Generation Isn成人视频檛: Pivoting Online with Traditional Campus Students.成人视频� Year成人视频檚 Work in Medievalism 35.36 (2020/21): 11成人视频�26.
• Refereed book chapters
  • 2024 成人视频淭eaching Beowulf as a Cultural Reliquary,成人视频� in Practical Approaches to Teaching Beowulf, eds. Larry Swain and Ophelia Erynn Hostetter. De Gruyter, 207-219.
  • 2023 成人视频淎rthurian Ethics Before the Pentecostal Oath: In Search of Ethical Origins in the Welsh Culhwch and Olwen.成人视频� Ethics in the Arthurian Legend. Eds. Melissa Ridley Elmes and Evelyn Meyer. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 8成人视频�34.
  • 2022 成人视频淔emale Friendship in Late-Medieval English Literature: Cultural Translation in Chaucer, Gower, and Malory.成人视频� Women成人视频檚 Friendship in Medieval Literature. Eds. Karma Lochrie and Usha Vishnuvajjala. Ohio State University Press, 135成人视频�54.
• Introductions
  • 2020 成人视频淚ntroduction to Special Issue: MEARCSTAPA: Ten Years of Teratology.成人视频� With Asa Simon Mittman and Thea Tomaini. Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 9.1: 1成人视频�10.
  • 2019 成人视频淓ditor成人视频檚 Note: New Feminist Voices in the Heroic Age.成人视频� With Carla Mar铆a Thomas. The Heroic Age 19.
• Anthologized Poems
  • 2024 成人视频淒ream Visions.成人视频� 2024 Rhysling Anthology, 68成人视频�70.
  • 2024 成人视频淎dventures in the Dark of the Mind.成人视频� Best of Penumbric, vol. vii.
  • 2023 成人视频淣ever Was a Princess Girl.成人视频� Dwarf Stars 2023 Anthology, 18.
• Poetry Editing
  • 2024 成人视频淥utlaws成人视频� issue of Eye to the Telescope. October.
• Poetry
  • 2024 成人视频淚ntergalactic Renthead.成人视频� Star*Line 47.1: 15.
  • 2023 成人视频淢usings from the Wet Season.成人视频� Belmont Story Review 8: 87.
  • 2022 成人视频淒ragons and Drams.成人视频� Liquid Imagination, June. Reprinted in Dreamscapes and Dark Corners
• Anthologized Stories
  • 2024 成人视频淎 Mnemosurgeon成人视频檚 Tale.成人视频� Hexagon Year Four Anthology, 167-176.
  • 2022 成人视频淭he Haunted and The Possessed.成人视频� Unwelcomed: Stories of Hauntings and Possessions, ed. Stephanie J. Bardy (Zombie Works Publications), 45-54.
  • 2020 成人视频淒r. Watson and the Werewolf.成人视频� Full Moon and Howlin成人视频�: A Werewolf Anthology, ed. Stephanie J. Bardy (Zombieworks Press), 101成人视频�142.
• Fiction
  • 2024 成人视频淭hread of Indignity.成人视频� DarkWinter Literary Magazine. June 15.
  • 2024 成人视频淐ome Hell or Highwater.成人视频� Oxford Magazine 52.
  • 2024 成人视频淎 Mnemosurgeon成人视频檚 Tale.成人视频� Hexagon 16 (March), 5成人视频�14.
  • 2023 成人视频淎 Sunbathing Frog My Heart成人视频檚 Gravestone.成人视频� Black Fork Review 9. 
• Creative Nonfiction and Craft Essays
  • 2023 成人视频淒ark and Twisty with a Side of Optimism.成人视频� Miracle Monocle 20.
  • 2022 成人视频淵ard Sale.成人视频� Sheepshead Review 45.1: 113成人视频�114. 
  • 2022 成人视频淢ay 22, 2012.成人视频� Past Ten.
  • 2021 成人视频淭he Art (and Heart) of Arthurian Things: A Craft Essay.成人视频� The Year成人视频檚 Work in Medievalism 34 (2019; published 2021): 77成人视频�89.