Dr. Renee Ward

Contract Academic Faculty

Contact Information

Email: rward@wlu.ca
Phone: 519-884-0710 ext.4091
Fax: 519-884-8307
Office Location: DAWB 3-127
Office Hours: (Winter) Tues. 12:00-13:30

Academic Background

• 2009 PhD   English (Alberta)
• 2002 MA    English (WLU)
• 2000 MA    Medieval Studies (Leeds)
• 1995 BA    English and Canadian Studies (WLU)
  

Research & Teaching Interests:

• Medieval Literature and Culture
• Children's Literature
  
• Medievalism (all periods)
  
• Fantasy and Science-Fiction Literature
  
• Early-Modern Literature and Print Culture
  

My interests are ecclectic but thematically related, and historical and cultural contexts heavily inform my research. I am interested in liminal figures, from werewolves to knights and warrior women, as well as in representations of monstrosity, in late medieval literature and modern medievalism (especially in the genres of medieval romance and young adult fantasy).

I enjoy experimenting with alternative pedagogies in all aspects of my teaching, and I engage whole-heartedly in student mentoring. I was also, in 2011-2012, the faculty sponsor for Laurier's chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance, a human rights and equity group which employs parallels from the Harry Potter series in its civic engagement.

Select Publications:

Critical Articles

• "Warrior Queens and Women's History: Deconstructing Stereotypes in Margaret Drabble's A Natural Curiosity." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 26pp. [Forthcoming 2014]
• "Harry Potter Medievalism." Handbook of Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture. Ed. Gail Ashton. Bloomsbury. [Forthcoming 2014]
• "To be a 'Fleschhewere': Beheading, Butcher-Knights, and Blood-Taboos in Octavian Imperator." Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination. Ed. Larissa Tracy and Jeff Massey. Brill Press, 2012. 159-82.
• "Bestiaries, Aviaries, Physiologus." Handbook of Medieval Studies: Concepts, Methods, Historical Developments, and Current Trends in Medieval Studies. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2010.
• Remus Lupin and Community: The Werewolf Tradition in J. K. Rowling's Harry PotterSeries." The Year's Work in Medievalism 2004. Ed. Gwendolyn A. Morgan. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006. 26-40.
• "Challenging the Boundaries of Medieval Romance: Thomas Chestre's Lybeaus Desconus."Florilegium 21 (2004): 119-34.

• "The Magic of Medievalism: Teaching Arthuriana with Camelot." The Once and Future Classroom 11.1 (Spring 2013): n.p.
• "Getting Medieval in the Classroom." Teaching with Harry Potter: Essays on Classroom Wizardry from Elementary School to College. Ed. Valerie Estelle Frankel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013. 152-67, 241-48.
• Rev. of Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300-900: The Sword, the Plough and the Book, by Matthew Innes. Mediaevistik 24 (2011): 393-98.
  
• Rev. of The Girl's King Arthur, by Barbara Tepa Lupack. The Once and Future Classroom 8.2 (2010).

• Juliet McMaster and Amy Stafford, with Katie McConchie, Natalie McIntyre, Renee Ward, Lindsey Whitson, and Dana Wight, eds. Dick Doyle's Journal: Volume Three. By Richard Doyle. Sydney, Australia: Juvenilia Press, 2009.