Lillian Bisson

Academic Credentials

B.A., Elms College
M.A., University of Massachusetts
Ph.D., Florida State University
Other study: Folger Institute seminars on Dante and Machiavelli

Biography

Other Information

Teaching Area

Research Interests

• Medieval women mystics
• The portrayal of the teacher-student relationship in medieval texts

Dr. Lillian Bisson served as a Marymount faculty member from 1969 to 2010, and now is professor emerita of English. She serves in an advisory capacity with the Department of Literature and Languages in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Her primary field of interest is late medieval literature, particularly Chaucer and Dante studies. Others areas of interest are feminist studies, particularly relating to Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, and interdisciplinary approaches to ancient and medieval culture.

Her book, Chaucer and the Late Medieval World, was selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of 1998. Both the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded her grants for summer institutes to enrich the background of high school teachers in medieval studies.

She also served as a program officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities and as a long-term department chairperson and director of Marymount’s graduate program in Literature and Language. Her current research interests are medieval women mystics and the portrayal of the teacher-student relationship in medieval texts.

Publications