Assistant Professor Matthew Aiello
We are delighted to welcome Matthew Aiello to the English Department at Rutgers University.
Having received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023, Professor Aiello was selected for a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows for his scholarship on medieval England, particularly of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. He will join the department in Fall 2026.
A daring theorist, Professor Aiello generates connections across periods in ways that open new possibilities for medieval studies. His areas of research and teaching span a range of topics in language and literature, including Old and Middle English, Latin, French, book history, trauma theory, and postcolonial studies. His current book project, Writing Under Duress: Trauma and Repetition in Early Medieval England, 1065-1250, investigates the so-called "lost" period of English literary history—the 200-year aftermath of the Norman Conquest of 1066, when literatures in English were thought to have all but disappeared. Rather than working to combat claims of loss, as others in this period have done, Writing Under Duress embraces the richness of loss for what it can reveal about the textual and historical conditions of post-Conquest England.
Professor Aiello's work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Speculum, JEGP, Exemplaria, New Medieval Literatures, and the Review of English Studies. His extraordinary profile is already garnering recognition in the field and beyond, and promises an elevated, public-facing role for Rutgers medievalists.