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- Nicole Rice
Professor
Ph.D., 2002, Columbia UniversityM.Phil., 1997, University of CambridgeB.A., 1995, Yale University
Nicole R. Rice joined the St. John’s University English Department in September 2008. Her undergraduate and graduate courses cover topics including medieval drama, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, sex and gender, medieval travel narratives, and medieval romance. Dr. Rice’s scholarship explores connections among late medieval religious culture, civic life, gender, and expressive modes such as prose, poetry, and drama. In 2026, Dr. Rice was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has previously held fellowships from the Beinecke Library (2024), NEH (2018), ACLS (2011–12), and the Huntington Library (2001). Her monographs include The Medieval Hospital: Literary Culture and Community in England, 1350–1550 (2023), The Civic Cycles: Artisan Drama and Identity in Premodern England, co-authored with Margaret A. Pappano (2015), and Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature (2008). She received the Medieval Academy’s 2013 John Nicholas Brown Prize for Lay Piety and Religious Discipline and the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society’s 2016 David Bevington Award for The Civic Cycles.Edited collections include Middle English Religious Writing in Practice: Texts, Readers, and Transformations (2013) and Manuscript Culture and Medieval Devotional Traditions: Essays in Honour of Michael G. Sargent, co-edited with Jennifer N. Brown (2021).
Book in Progress
A Literary History of Care: Vulnerability and Transformation in England, 1350–1600. Monograph.
Supported by a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2025 ACLS Project Development Grant.
Published Books
The Medieval Hospital: Literary Culture and Community in England, 1350–1550. Monograph.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2023. ReFormations Series.
Supported by a 2018 NEH Fellowship.
Manuscript Culture and Medieval Devotional Traditions: Essays in Honour of Michael G. Sargent.
Festschrift co-edited with Jennifer N. Brown. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2021.
The Civic Cycles: Artisan Drama and Identity in Premodern England. Monograph co-written with Margaret A. Pappano. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. ReFormations series.
Supported by a 2011–12 ACLS Collaborative Fellowship.
Middle English Religious Writing in Practice: Readers, Texts and Transformations. Edited collection.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2013.
Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies series 21.
Contributed Introduction and Chapter 5: “Lay Spiritual Texts and Pastoral Care in Two Fifteenth-Century Priests’ Collections.”
Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature. Monograph.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Essays and Book Chapters
Forthcoming Essays
“Good Morals” and Beyond: Women’s Reading and Religious Life at the Hôtel Dieu de Beaune in the Late Fifteenth Century.” Article in preparation for The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures.
“Civic Cultures: York and Chester.” Co-written with Margaret A. Pappano. MLA Approaches to Teaching Medieval Drama, ed. Emma Lipton and John Sebastian. Forthcoming 2026.
“Motherhood in the Late Medieval Hospital: Childbirth Charms and Holy Mothers at St
Bartholomew’s, London.” Medieval Women: Proceedings of the 2024 Harlaxton Medieval
Symposium, ed. Martha Driver and Marlene V. Hennessy. Forthcoming 2026.
“Visionary Pastoralism and the Defense of Orthodoxy in a Syon Brother’s Manuscript.” Birgitta of Sweden and Other Continental Women Visionaries: The English Reception in the Middle Ages, ed. Laura Saetveit Miles and Katherine Zieman. Forthcoming 2026.
Published Essays
“Trauma, ‘Socour,’ and Friendship in Fifteenth-Century London: Widows Reading at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.” The London Journal 50.1 (Spring 2025): 1–18.
“Servant’s ‘Pains’ and Lord’s Power: Service and Succession in Thomas Chaloner’s Poetry.”
English Literary Renaissance 55.1(January 2025): 35–62.
“Visions and ‘Pleyner’ Pardon at Syon Abbey.” Syon Abbey Society Newsletter 4 (Autumn 2024).
“Beinecke MS Osborn a29: John Shirley Reads Rolle in the Hospital.” The Journal of the Early Book Society 25 (2022): 223–37.
“Devotional Reading and Display at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.” In Performance, Ceremony and Display in Medieval Britain: Proceedings of the 2018 Harlaxton Symposium, ed.
Julia Boffey. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2020. 176–92.
“Devotional Compilation and Lollard Sanctity in a Fifteenth-Century Anthology.” In Late Medieval Devotional Compilations in England, ed. Marleen Cré, Diana Denison, and Denis Renevey.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. 231–54.
“The Feminine Prehistory of the York Purification: St. Leonard’s Hospital, Civic Drama, and Women’s Devotion.” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies (July 2019): 1–35.
Runner-up, Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society Martin Stevens Award.
“Artisan Drama, Patronage, and Fellowship Reconfigured: The Chester Shepherds in 1578.”
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 49.2 (May 2019): 319–45.
Winner of the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society Martin Stevens Award.
“Commemoration and Charity at the Medieval Hospital of St Bartholomew.”
London Metropolitan Archives Newsletter, May 2019. Online publication.
“Forming Holiness in a Lollard Ave Maria Commentary.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 31 (2017): 159–87.
“Law, Farce, and Counter-Kingship in the Semur Fall of Lucifer.” Comparative Drama 49.2 (Summer 2015): 163–89.
“Lay Spiritual Texts and Pastoral Care in Two Fifteenth-Century Priests’ Collections.” Middle English Religious Writing in Practice: Readers, Texts, and Transformations. Ed. Nicole R. Rice. Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies series 21. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013. 149–77.
“Reformist Devotional Reading: The Pore Caitif in British Library, MS Harley 2322.” In The Medieval
Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium VII (2011). Ed. A. E. Jones. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013. 177–93.
“‘Temples to Christ’s Indwelling’: Forms of Chastity in a Barking Abbey Manuscript.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19.1 (2010): 115–32.
‘“Whom seek ye, sirs?’ The Logic of Searching in the York Herod and the Magi.” Comparative Drama 43.1 (2009): 89–112.
“‘Beginning and Beginning-Again’: Processions, Plays, and Civic Politics in York and Chester.” Co-written with Margaret A. Pappano. Studies in the Age of Chaucer 30 (2008): 269–301.
“Walter Hilton’s Mixed Life and the Transformation of Clerical Discipline in a Fifteenth-Century Priest’s Miscellany.” Leeds Studies in English New Series 38 (2007): 143–69.
“Profitable Devotions: Bodley MS 423, Guildhall MS 7114, and a Sixteenth-Century London Pewterer.” Journal of the Early Book Society 10 (2007): 173–81.
“Devotional Literature and Lay Spiritual Authority: imitatio clerici in Book to a Mother.” The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 35.2 (2005): 187–216.
“Spiritual Ambition and the Translation of the Cloister: The Abbey and Charter of the Holy Ghost.” Viator 33 (2002): 222–60.
Journal Special Issue
The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 43.3 (Fall 2013). Co-edited with Margaret A. Pappano.
Topic: medieval and early modern artisan culture. Co-wrote Introduction.
Exhibit Contribution
“Hands for meditating on the fear and love of God” (with Hannah Lucas, forthcoming 2026). The Knowing Hands Project, https://cas-e.de/2025/07/22/the-mind-in-hand-introducing-the-knowing-hands-projectblog-for-cas-e-june-2025/
Encyclopedia Entries
“Devotional Texts” and “The Chester Cycle.” Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval British Literature. Ed. Siân Echard and Richard Rouse. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Book Reviews
Patrick Outhwaite. Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy England and Central Europe, 1350-1434. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2024. Forthcoming in Church History.
Laura Kalas. Margery Kempe’s Spiritual Medicines: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 75.4 (October 2024): 799–802.
Rebecca Abrams. Licoricia of Winchester: Power and Prejudice in Medieval England. Ceredigion, UK: Gomer Press, 2022. Jewish Historical Studies: A Journal of English-Speaking Jewry 56.1 (2024): 184–87.
Diana Wyatt and John McKinnell, eds. Early Performers and Performance in the Northeast of England. Ed. Early Social Performance Series. Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2021. Speculum 99.3 (July 2024): 970–72.
Julie Paulson. Theater of the Word: Selfhood in the English Morality Play. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2019. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 121.1 (2021): 152–55.
Ellen K. Rentz. Imagining the Parish in Late Medieval England. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015. Studies in the Age of Chaucer 38 (2016): 350–53.
Amy Appleford, Learning to Die in London, 1380-1540. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 116.2 (2016): 242–45.
Christina Maria Cervone, Poetics of the Incarnation: Middle English Writing and the Leap of Love. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Yearbook of Langland Studies 28 (2014): 270–75.
Kirsty Campbell, The Call to Read: Reginald Pecock’s Books and Textual Communities. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2010. Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 87.4 (October 2012): 1169–71.
A Companion to ‘The Doctrine of the Hert’: The Middle English Translation and its Latin and European Contexts. Ed. Denis Renevey and Christiania Whitehead. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2010. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63.2 (2012): 391–93.
Margaret Rogerson, Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951–2006. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Comparative Drama 43.4 (2009): 528–32.
Diane Watt, Medieval Women’s Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1100–1500. Cambridge: Polity, 2007. Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 84.3 (2009): 787–89.
The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature. Ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski et al. New York: Palgrave, 2002. The Medieval Review 2003. Online publication.
Selected Invited Lectures
“Caring for Women at the Late-Medieval English Hospitals.” Guest lecture for Professor Wan Chuan Kao’s courses, “Literary Approaches to Poverty” and “Body and Flesh in the Age of Chaucer.” Washington and Lee University. February 2026 (virtual).
“St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Treatment of Women.” Seminar on “Hospitals and the Universe of Knowledge.” Instituto de Historia, Centro de Sciences Sociales y Humanas.
Madrid, Spain. November 2019.
“St. Leonard’s Hospital and Civic Performance: the Prehistory of the York Purification.”
Harvard University Medieval Colloquium. Cambridge, MA. November 2016.
“Devotional Compilation and Lollard Sanctity.” Keynote lecture.
Conference on Devotional Compilations. Lausanne, Switzerland. April 2016.
Selected Conference Papers
“Visionary Pastoralism in Beinecke MS 317.” Biannual Congress of the New Chaucer Society.
Freiburg, Germany. July 2026.
“Aging Artisans and Care in Late Medieval Chester: the Wrights’ Nativity Play.” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, University of the South. Sewanee, TN. April 2026.
“Hands for Meditating on the Fear and Love of God” (with Hannah Lucas). The Knowing Hands Project Workshop. Erlangen, Germany. September 2025.
“French Bestsellers at the Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune.” Biannual Meeting of the Early Book Society.
New York, NY. June 2025.
“Visionary Pastoralism and the Defense of Orthodoxy in a Syon Abbey Manuscript.” Workshop for the Birgitta Project. Solstrand, Norway. May 2025.
“Motherhood in the Late Medieval Hospital.” Harlaxton Medieval Symposium. Madingley Hall, UK. August 2024.
“Reading the Livre de Bonnes Moeurs at the Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune.” Society for French Historical Studies. Garden City, New York. March 2024.
“Widows Reading at the Late Medieval Hospital: Dame Joan Astley and her Friends.” North American Conference on British Studies, Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD. November 2023.
“Precarious Lives as Revealed in Hospital Books.” Biannual Meeting of the Early Book Society.
Bangor, Wales and online. July 2021.
“A Hospital booklet from Bristol: Amending Life and Anticipating Death.” Early Book Society Session, Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2019.
“Devotional Reading and Display at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.” Harlaxton Medieval Symposium. Harlaxton Manor, UK. July 2018.
“The Corruption and Purification of Women at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.” NYU Medieval and Renaissance Center Conference: “The Worlds that Plague Made: Cultures of Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern Period.”
New York, NY. April 2018.
“The Chester Shepherds in 1578: Intergenerational Performance, Patronage, and Livery.” American Society of Theatre Research. Atlanta, Georgia. November 2017.
“Civic Play Revivals: Artisan Drama without Artisans?” Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA. January 2017.
“The Drama of Purification and Cultural Change in York.” On the Peripheries of the Reformation: Conference of the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium. Toronto, Ontario. October 2016.
“Forming Holiness in a Lollard Devotional Collection.” Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2015.
“Baking, Mastery, and Drama in Premodern Chester.” Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2014.
“Law, Satire, and the Origins of Transgression in the Semur Fall of Lucifer.” Renaissance Society of America. New York, NY. March 2014.
“Civic Charity, the Mercers’ Hospital, and the York Last Judgment.” Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2012.
“Inclusive and Exclusive Devotion: A Lollard Pore Caitiff in British Library MS Harley 2322.” Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2010.
Selected Conference Panels Organized
“Roundtable: Centering New Discoveries.” For the LLC Middle English Forum. Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Los Angeles, CA. January 2027.
“Gendered Care and Control in Late Medieval English Drama.” Sewanee Medieval
Colloquium, University of the South. Sewanee, TN. April 2026.
“Medieval Drama and Poetic Form.” For the LLC Middle English Forum and Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society. Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association.
Toronto, CA. January 2026.
“Recovery and Cultures of Care.” For the LLC Middle English Forum and LLC Chaucer Forum. Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. New Orleans, LA. January 2025.
“Strange Headings.” For the LLC Middle English Forum and LLC Chaucer Forum.
Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA. January 2024.
“Medieval Drama: Performance Matters.” With Susan Nakley, St. Joseph’s University.
Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Chicago, IL. January 2019.
“Vernacular Drama and Liturgy in Text and Performance.” With Donna Bussell, University of Illinois, Springfield. Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2008.
Panel Respondent
“Violence and Reproductive Justice I.”Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. Sewanee, TN. April 2026.
“Dramatic Temporalities and Lines.” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. Sewanee, TN. March 2023.
“New Voices in Early Drama Studies.” Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society. Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2022.
Public Lectures
“In Their Own Words: An Evening of Medieval Women’s Poetry,” American Trust for the British Library, reader. The Poetry Society of America, Brooklyn, NY, February 2025.
“Women Medievalists on Medieval Women,” American Trust for the British Library, panelist.
The Grolier Club, New York, NY, March 2024.
Audience Talkback conversation on “The Amateurs” by Jordan Harrison.
Vineyard Theatre, New York, NY, March 2018.