Elizabeth Hebbard

Elizabeth Hebbard is Assistant Professor of French and Italian at Indiana University Bloomington (College of Arts and Sciences) and Affiliated Faculty in Musicology (Jacobs School of Music). Her interdisciplinary work bridges medieval literature, musicology, and manuscript studies.

Education:

• Ph.D. in French, Yale University, 2017
• B.A. in French and German, University of Georgia, 2007
• B.Mus. in Music Performance (Bassoon), University of Georgia, 2007

Hebbard researches medieval French and Occitan lyric, examining authorship, text-music relationships, and the tension between song as ephemeral performance and written text. Trained in paleography and codicology, she specializes in manuscript fragments and digital reconstruction of dispersed medieval libraries. Her work reveals how lesser-studied manuscripts challenge traditional views of troubadour authorship.

Recent publications analyze troubadour traditions and medieval Mediterranean lyric, highlighting interdisciplinary connections between literature and music. She has contributed to Oxford Bibliographies and TENSO.

Awards:

• Presidential Arts & Humanities Fellow (2023)
• IU College Arts and Humanities Institute Research Fellow (2022)

Hebbard leads major grant projects including the CLIR Hidden Collections Grant for "Peripheral Manuscripts" (digitizing Midwest medieval collections) and co-founded The Book Lab with an OVPR Public Humanities Grant. She organizes symposia on manuscript studies and collaborates across departments.

The Book Lab and "Peripheral Manuscripts" project exemplify her commitment to innovative digital approaches for reconstructing fragmented medieval textual heritage.