Robert W Barrett

Robert W Barrett serves as Associate Professor in the Department of English and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he concurrently holds the position of Associate Head of the English Department within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

His academic credentials include:

• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2001
• M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1996
• B.A., Trinity University, 1991

Barrett's research centers on Medieval British and Irish literature with specialized focus on English drama to 1642, ecocriticism (particularly critical plant studies), and global Middle Ages scholarship. His work uniquely intersects regional studies of Cheshire and Chester with environmental humanities, examining how locality shapes literary production and cultural identity in premodern contexts through rigorous textual analysis and spatial theory.

Publication trends (2009-2023) demonstrate consistent engagement with Chester mystery plays and regional identity, evolving toward transnational medieval frameworks and ecological criticism. His scholarship reveals methodological progression from localized Cheshire studies to broader investigations of language hierarchies, cross-cultural exchange, and plant-human relationships in medieval performance traditions.