Jennifer N. Brown

Jennifer N. Brown is Professor of English and World Literatures and Chair of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at Marymount Manhattan College. She is affiliated with the Department of Writing, Literature, and Language, where she teaches courses in medieval and early modern literature, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, and capstone seminars on the Booker Prize.

• B.A., Georgetown University
• M.A., Georgetown University
• Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Her research centers on Medieval and Early Modern Literature, with a focus on women’s writing, devotional traditions, hagiography, gender, and manuscript culture. She explores how female voices emerge in religious texts, the construction of sanctity, and the interplay between sexuality, cosmology, and spirituality in medieval literature.

Her recent publications span edited volumes, critical editions, and peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, Medieval Feminist Forum, and Journal of the History of Sexuality. Her work often examines figures like Catherine of Siena, Marie d’Oignies, and the nuns of Barking Abbey, highlighting themes of agency, embodiment, and textual authority. She has also contributed extensively to the Year’s Work in English Studies with bibliographical surveys on medieval women’s writing.

• Best Article Prize, Society for Feminist Medieval Scholarship (2011)

Brown has held significant academic leadership roles, including Chair of the Department of English and World Literatures (2018–2020) and current Chair of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (2020–present). She has supervised no listed advisees but has contributed to pedagogical resources and reference works, including entries in The Norton Anthology of Western Literature and Facts on File Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry. She is currently working on a novel titled The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton and an article on the vocabulary of devotion.