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- Detailed Information
Karl T. Steel
Assistant Professor
English
Location: 2157 Boylan Hall
Phone: 718.951.5000 x6224
Fax: 718.951.4612
Email:
For Karl Steel's CV, see here. For a short video introduction to his work, see here. Steel's first book is How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages. He co-edited "The Animal Turn," a special issue of postmedieval. His most recent publications are new materialist and ecocritical engagements with medieval death poetry and skin.
Education:
Ph.D., Columbia University - 2007 (Literature, Comparative)
M.A., Western Washington University - 1999 (English Literature)
B.A., The Evergreen State College - 1993 (English Literature)
Areas of Expertise:
Medieval literature, intellectual history and social practice; critical animal theory; ecocriticism. At Brooklyn College, Steel has taught Bible as Literature, Chaucer, a variety of medieval comparative literature courses (including a graduate seminar on medieval animals and an undergraduate seminar on Eating in the Middle Ages) and introductions to literary theory. He has run two Wolfe Institute seminars on critical animal theory and on new materialism.
Books and Publications
"Touching Back: Responding to Reading Skin." Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture. Ed. Katie L. Walker. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 183-95 (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2013
"Abyss: Everything Is Food." postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 4.1: 93-104. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2013
"A Fourteenth-Century Ecology: 'The Former Age' with Dindimus." Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts. Ed. Carolynne van Dyke. Palgrave Macmillan. 185-99. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2012
"Centaurs, Satyrs and Cynocephali: Medieval Scholarly Teratology and the Question of the Human." The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. Eds. Asa Mittman and Peter Dendle. Ashgate. 257-74. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2012
"Kill Me, Save Me, Let Me Go: Custance, Virginia, Emelye." Dark Chaucer. Eileen A. Joy, Nicola Masciandaro and Myra Seaman, eds. Punctum Books. 149-58. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2012
"With the World, or Bound to Face the Sky: The Postures of the Wolf-Child of Hesse." Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Punctum Books. 9-34. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2012
"Ridiculous Mourning: Dead Pets and Lost Humans." "Animalia" cluster, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 34: 345-49. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2012
Review of Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature. Gender in the Middle Ages, by Dana M. Oswald. The Medieval Review, November. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2012
Steel, Karl, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Mary Kate Hurley and Eileen Joy. "Two Proposals for Increasing Persistence, Exposure, and Humiliation." Section in "Why We Blog" article. Literature Compass 9.12: 1016-18. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2012
"The Phoenix and the Turtle / Number There in Love Was Slain." Shakesqueer. Ed. Madhavi Menon. Duke University Press. 271-78. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2011
How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages. Ohio State University Press. (Books and Publications: Book) 2011
Review of Animal Characters: Nonhuman Beings in Early Modern Literature, by Bruce Thomas Boehrer. Renaissance Quarterly 64: 325-26. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2011
Review of Engaging With Nature: Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Eds. Lisa Kiser and Barbara Hanawalt. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 110: 123-26. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2011
Review of From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain, by Jill Mann. Medium Aevum 80.2: 331-32. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2011
Steel, Karl and Peggy McCracken. "The Animal Turn: Into the Sea With the Fish Knights of Perceforest." postmedieval 2.1: 88-100. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2011
Steel, Karl and Peggy McCracken. "The Animal Turn." postmedieval 2.1. (Co-edited theme issue, with essays by Cary Wolfe, Sarah Kay, Peter Travis, Gary Lim, Susan Crane and Sarah Stanbury). (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2011
"Woofing and Weeping With Animals in the Last Days." postmedieval 1.1/2: 187-93. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2010
Review of The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume 2: The Middle Ages. Eds. Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. The Medieval Review October. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2010
"An Unfinished Conversation About Glowing Green Bunnies" (book Foreword, authored by Jeffrey J. Cohen with incorporated dialog between Cohen, Eileen Joy, Holly Crocker and Karl Steel. Queering the Non/Human.Eds. Noreen Giffney and Myra J. Hird. Ashgate. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2008
"How to Make a Human." Exemplaria 20.1: 3-27. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2008
Steel, Karl and Christopher Wise, trans. "Wanderings: Bamako, Moscow, Delhi," by El Hadjj Sekou Tall. Journal of African Travel Writing 8-9 (2000-01): 77-94. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2001
Creative Work
"Afterwords: Remy's Open Hand." Whiskey & Fox 4.1, March: 36-39. 2010
Awards, Honors and Fellowships
Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities. (Awards and Honors) 2011
PSC-CUNY Research Award. $3,499.64. (Awards and Honors) 2011
Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, Spring. (Grants and Fellowships) 2010
Travel grant. $1,200. (Grants and Fellowships) 2010
New Faculty Fund. $542. (Grants and Fellowships) 2009
PSC-CUNY Research Award. $3,750. (Awards and Honors) 2009
Travel grant. $450. (Grants and Fellowships) 2009
New Faculty Fund. $410. (Grants and Fellowships) 2008
PSC-CUNY Research Award. $3767.50. (Grants and Fellowships) 2008
Travel grant. $475. (Grants and Fellowships) 2008
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Feeding the Dogs," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2013
"Creeping Things, Matter's Own Life" at the 30th Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature, Elemental Ecocriticism (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2013
"A Singular Cat, a Mess of Vermin, and the Appetites of The Disputation Between the Body and the Worms." Theory and the Medieval Animal. University College London Centre for Early Modern Exchanges. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
"Abyss." Ecomaterialism session. 2nd Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2012
"Biopolitics in the Forest: On Lively Deer, Lively Carcasses, and the Appetites of Lepers." New York University Medieval Forum. Oct. 18. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
"Everything Is Food." Robot Weekend: Being Human Gizmos. Penn State Institute for the Arts and the Humanities. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
"How to Make a Human: Animals in the Middle Ages. Miami University Study Abroad Dijon Program, June 6. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
"Irrational (Human) Objects of a Rational Law: On Deer Carcasses and the Medieval English Forest." New Chaucer Society. Portland, Ore. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2012
"Poachers, Lepers, and the Deer's Lively Carcass." Human/Animal Symposium. International Medieval Society - Paris. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2012
"Ridiculous Grief: Dead Animals and Lost Humans." Constituting the Human Conference. New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2011
"Thanks Unending: Dindimus With the World." How to Make a Human Symposium. Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, George Washington University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011
"Unmaking Humans: Several Medieval Nonhumanisms." Animal Studies Interdisciplinary Workshop. University of Michigan. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011
"Weeping With Erkenwald; or, Complicit With Grace." Modern Language Association. Los Angeles. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2011
"With the World, or Bound to Face the Sky: The Postures of the Wolf Child of Hesse." Animals, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects in the Early Modern Period Conference. March 11. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011
"Yvain's Herdsman, A Lion, and Several Dead Dogs: Rules for Being Human, and Some Ways Out." Program in Medieval Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011
"On Not Finishing Erkenwald." Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium on "Always Historicize? Historicism, Post-historicism and Medieval Studies." New York University. April 1. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2010
"The Child of Hesse: On Walking and Not Walking With Wolves." Third Annual Roundtable on New Directions in Medieval Scholarship. CUNY Graduate Center. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"The Past as Past Is Its Disappearance: Erkenwald and the Jews." New Chaucer Society Conference. Siena, Italy, July. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2010
"The Wolf-Child of Hesse: Bound to the Sky." Plenary Panel on Critical Methodology, Twenty-second Barnard Medieval and Renaissance Conference. Barnard College. New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Will Wonders Never Cease: St. Erkenwald with Claustrophilia." Claustrophilia Seminar. George Washington University Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2009
"Woofing and Weeping: Mourning With Animals in the Last Days." International Medieval Conference. Kalamazoo, Mich. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009
"Losing Anthropocentrism." Brooklyn College Faculty Day. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"Number There in Love Was Slain." Shakesqueer Symposium. Cornell University. Ithaca, N.Y. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"Reason, Death and Passion in Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle." Works in Progress Seminar. Brooklyn College. March 11. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 2008
"Symphytic Gowther and Other Worldly Animals." 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, Mich. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"Talking Animals." Robert. L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Talk with Marc Shell. April 16. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 2008
"The Return of the Pig: Violence and Meat in Resurrection Doctrine." Southeast Medieval Association Conference. St. Louis. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"Hunting in Chrétien's Yvain: A Reassessment of Le Goff." International Medieval Conference. Kalamazoo, Mich. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006
"Meat and the Violence of Reason in the Middle Ages." Animal Studies Group, Queen's University. Kingston, Ontario. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2005
"The Child Christ and Pigs in the Oven." International Medieval Conference. Leeds, United Kingdom. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2005
"Incest, Aristocratic Origins and Monstrous Identity in Des Grantz Geanz." Medieval Academy of America Conference. Seattle. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2004
Professional Leadership
Member, Faculty Senate Committee on Committees. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2010
(English) departmental representative, Brooklyn College Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, 2009-present. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2009
English departmental secretary, 2009-present. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009
Humanities divisional delegate, Faculty Council, Fall 2009-Spring 2010 and Spring 2011-present. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009
Member, Course and Standing Committee, four semesters--2008-10. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009
Member, editorial board, Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2009
Member, editorial board, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2009
Member, Departmental Undergraduate Research Conference Committee, 2007-present. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2007
Community Activities
Video Introduction to Critical Animal Theory, for Itineration: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Rhetoric, Media, and Culture, "Big Ideas" series. 2013
"Meat Me in Paradise" talk at Proteus Gowanus Paradise Sermons. April 3. 2011
"Saints, Monsters, and Animals: Some Ways of Being Human in the Middle Ages" Talk given to the Brooklyn College IRPE (Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education) Intellectual Life Lecture Series, March 17. 2011
Interview with Kris Coffield on the blog Fractured Politics. 2011
Respondent, Brooklyn College Graduate Student Conference, 2010-11. 2010
Other Professional Activities
Ad hoc reviewer, Journal of the Northern Renaissance. 2013
Ad hoc reviewer, University of Minnesota Press. 2012
Ad hoc reviewer, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada / Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada. 2011
Ad hoc reviewer, Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 2010
Ad hoc reviewer, Philological Quarterly. 2010
Ad hoc reviewer, Renaissance Quarterly. 2010
Chairman, Wolfe Institute Interdisciplinary Study Group on Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Fall. 2010
Ad hoc reviewer for PSC-CUNY grants. 2009
Chairman, Wolfe Institute Interdisciplinary Study Group on Critical Animal Theory, Fall. 2009
Co-organizer, "Glossing Is a Glorious Thing: The Past, Present and Future of Commentary." CUNY Graduate Center. New York. April 9-10. 2009
Steel, Karl, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Eileen Joy and Mary Kate Hurley. Medieval studies blog, In the Middle. 2006-present. 2006
