Melissa Heide

Melissa Heide is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Colby College. Her scholarly expertise lies in medieval and early modern British literature, art, and culture, with interdisciplinary foci in environmental humanities, gender studies, and queer theory.

Her current book project, The Natural Order: Ecologies of Social Class in Medieval British Literature, explores how twelfth-century ecological thought influenced medieval conceptions of social class across diverse literary traditions, including patristic commentary and late-medieval border narratives. She emphasizes pedagogical accessibility and intersectional approaches to medieval studies, seeking to connect premodern literature with contemporary student experiences.