Medieval poetry and poetics, gender studies, drama and performance
Professor Novacich specializes in medieval literature. Her research interests include poetry and poetics, drama and performance cultures, gender studies, archival theory, visual culture, fiction, and travel literature. She has essays on these subjects in an array of journals, including Exemplaria, New Medieval Literatures, JEGP, postmedieval, and Philological Quarterly. Her first book, Shaping the Archive in Late Medieval England: History, Poetry, and Performance (Cambridge UP) examines how episodes of sacred history – in particular, the loss of Eden, the flood, and the Harrowing of Hell – illuminate the risks and pleasures of archival process. Her current research examines how some medieval thinkers understood poetic form as capable of explaining and altering personal and cultural histories. She is the Director of the Program in Global Medieval Studies at Rutgers.