“I am immensely grateful for this recognition of the value of my work and its potential to alter conversations in my fields of specialization, medieval literature and the history of emotion,� McNamer said. “For me, this will serve as inspiration to think more boldly and creatively not only about my current book project, but about how the methods I develop might help others to model their research questions and practices.�

McNamer is one of 223 fellows in this year’s cohort of awardees working across 55 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields. Each year since 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships to trailblazing artists, scientists and scholars. The fellows receive a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions,â€� the foundation .  

In 2023, , the interim provost and the former interim dean of the º£½ÇÂÛ̳ of the Arts & Sciences, was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in theatre arts and performance studies. , a professor in the School of Foreign Service, also won the award that year.

“Being named a Guggenheim Fellow is one of the most significant forms of recognition that a scholar can receive,â€� said º£½ÇÂÛ̳ of Arts & Sciences Dean . “Sarah McNamer richly deserves this honor. Her research has made an indelible and lasting impact on the field of English, the study of the medieval period and our understanding of human emotions.â€�

The History of Emotion

McNamer’s primary research interest is in the interplay between medieval literature and the history of emotion.

“The history of emotion may be an unfamiliar concept to some, but the idea that emotions — like everything else about us humans — have histories, and are in part socially and culturally constructed, was one that I began to explore early in my graduate studies,� she said. “A core question of, ‘How do literary texts both reflect and generate affective experience in history?’ has motivated my research.�

She is currently working on a book, Affect and Audience in the Work of the Pearl Poet. The Pearl Poet, also known as the Gawain Poet, is the unknown author of the late 14th-century poems, “Pearl� and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.� The identity and cultural location of this elusive author remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of English literary history, McNamer said, and she plans to use the Guggenheim grant to help support her research.

“I’ve always been interested in theorizing affect historically and exploring how literary texts generate affective experience in history,� she said. “For this poet, such questions are especially challenging, because basic facts about his historical coordinates are unknown. We know he wrote sometime in the second half of the 14th century, but for whom was he writing, when, where, for what occasions?�

In addition to being a Guggenheim Fellow, McNamer was as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Historical Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, for the , which will also support her research for the book. 

“This will be an ideal locus for research and writing in the company of other scholars from across the disciplines in the coming academic year,â€� McNamer said. 

Her book, , won the from the Conference on Christianity and Literature, and her critical edition, translation and commentary of received the for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies. 

“Georgetown faculty have a long and distinguished record of producing pathbreaking research in the humanities,â€� Edelstein said. “Professor McNamer’s scholarship demonstrates how the study of literature can illuminate the human condition and, by doing so, help us better understand society’s past, present and future.â€�

Exploring the Medieval Past

McNamer grew up in Montana, where she said she was “taught by some formidable Irish nuns in Catholic schools.�

She went on to study English at Harvard University and was drawn to literary study from the beginning. But McNamer said she had little interest in the distant past until her professor, Derek Pearsall, “opened up the medieval world to me and I began to see how rich and strange and fascinating it was.�

During a gap year in college, she traveled around the world, and to her, the Middle Ages began to have the same lure as experiencing other cultures. McNamer taught English in Japan, which helped form her love of teaching and sent her on the path to academia. 

She earned an MPhil in English Studies (Medieval Period) from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a Ph.D. in English from University of California, Los Angeles. She also served as a Junior Fellow of comparative literature at Harvard Society of Fellows from 1995-97 and 1998-99. 

McNamer started at Georgetown on Jan. 1, 2000, a date she said “seemed auspicious.â€� 

“I look back to the distant past on a daily basis, but my start date also oriented me towards thinking about the future: how can we think about medieval literature and culture with fresh, 21st-century approaches?,� she said.

McNamer has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at Georgetown that include Chaucer, Ways of Reading, Global Medieval Literatures, The Art of Short Fiction and Premodern Worlds: 500-1500. From 2017 to 2023, McNamer served as director of the .

“I’m grateful that Georgetown has been so forward-looking and supportive,� McNamer said. “And, of course, we have amazing students at Georgetown. Exploring the medieval past with them has been a joy.�

(Top image by Judy Licht)