Chaucer and Medieval Studies in Canterbury Peter Brown University of Kent Canterbury is a natural home for Chaucer studies. Ever since the Board (now School) of English was founded at the University of Kent in 1965, undergraduates in their second and final years have had access both to a core, or survey, module that includes the Canterbury Tales (currently Medieval and Tudor Literature) and to a more specialized option focusing on particular aspects of Chaucer’s works (e.g., Troilus and Criseyde and its cultural contexts). Chaucer has also featured in a first-year module, Explorations in Reading, which ran from The Pardoner ’s Tale to Waiting for Godot (or from Becket to Beckett). It follows that the department has always maintained a post for a medievalist (preferably one with broad sympathies), while other academic staff with different but related specialties have been prepared to make common cause. One example is a highly successful first-year module, Early Drama (from the liturgy to Dr. Faustus), which has run for many years Most of the texts have a Canterbury connection, and the module (current enrollment 118) is available to all students of English but is not compulsory. It challenges students’ preconceptions about literature and dramatic representation, introduces them to key images and ideas in biblical mythography , and allows them to undertake a practical project. The end of the spring term sees a veritable mini-festival of medieval and early modern plays performed on campus and in the city. If students are at first discombobulated by the extent to which they are encountering a Christian culture (an early guided tour of the cathedral as theatrical space is a baptism of fire), the majority rise to the challenge and end as apologists for the literature of the period. Whatever their high school background (where the teaching of Chaucer, let alone of other medieval literature, is in decline), many students of English do come to the UniPAGE 261 261 ................. 11491$ CH10 11-01-10 14:02:10 PS STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER versity of Kent at Canterbury with the reasonable expectation that Chaucer, and medieval literature more generally, will be on the agenda. However, this contribution to the colloquium is not primarily about undergraduate studies as organized by individual departments, but about cross-departmental postgraduate studies; and not just about Chaucer, but about medieval (and adjacent) studies. Specifically, it is about a recent crisis that engulfed the Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Tudor Studies. Although the issues raised are not Chaucer-specific, they are relevant insofar as the teaching of Chaucer at the postgraduate level frequently takes place within the broader context of a medieval studies program. The issues concern interdisciplinarity, collegiality, the place of medieval (and Chaucer) studies in the curriculum, the impact of government and University funding policies, and the emphasis placed on departmental research ratings and teaching quality assessments as modes of evaluating the worth of staff. Just as the enthusiasm generated in a first-year medieval module generates good recruitment into second- and final-year core and special modules in medieval literature, so well-received undergraduate modules in turn generate a thirst for postgraduate study in the same area. Colleagues in History at Kent, teaching a similar undergraduate program structure, and with the added benefit of more staff in the medieval and early modern periods, had experienced similar demands. So it seemed appropriate to join forces and mount an M.A. in Medieval and Tudor Studies, drawing on the resources of both disciplines, and with additional input from Drama and French. The M.A. enjoyed modest success throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and was helped on its way by the loose interdisciplinary structure of the Faculty of Humanities and the collegiate structure of the University. However, in the early 1990s, under pressure from the Thatcherite philosophies of accountability and line management, the University adopted more dirigiste policies toward both Faculties and colleges: ‘‘Boards of studies’’ became fully-fledged departments, located in a single place, and, as a consequence, colleges ceased to be sites of interdisciplinary interchange. The formation of the Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Tudor Studies was a direct response to these developments. It became, in effect, a postgraduate department...
Read full abstract
Oct 8, 2017
Lorraine M Ling 
Open Access