Christopher Cannon

Christopher Cannon is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and Classics at the Johns Hopkins University, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences. He specializes in medieval literature, focusing on the emergence of English literature as a distinct category through intellectual, philological, and comparative lenses. His research emphasizes medieval Latin, grammar school learning, and theories of language.

Dr. Cannon holds a PhD from Harvard University and has taught at NYU, Cambridge, Oxford, and UCLA before joining Johns Hopkins in 2017. His editorial roles include co-editing Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture and the Oxford Chaucer edition. He has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship and the William Riley Parker Prize (MLA, 2014).

His publications include From Literacy to Literature (2016), Grounds of English Literature (2004), and Making of Chaucer’s English (1998). His work explores Chaucer, Langland, and the Auchinleck Manuscript, emphasizing medieval educational systems and linguistic evolution.

Research interests span medieval Latin’s impact on English literature, the interplay between orality and literacy, and the cultural contexts shaping literary history. His contributions to textual studies and historical methodologies have reshaped understandings of medieval literary production and transmission.