Leanne MacDonald

Leanne MacDonald is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, situated within the Faculty of Arts. After growing up in Langley, British Columbia, she earned her BA (Hons) from Simon Fraser University and both her MA and PhD in medieval English literature at the University of Notre Dame, where she subsequently held a post-doctoral appointment in the Writing and Rhetoric program.

Education

• BA (Hons), Simon Fraser University
• MA, University of Notre Dame
• PhD, University of Notre Dame

Her scholarly agenda centres on gender and sexuality in medieval literature, with particular attention to Old and Middle English saints’ lives, manuscript cultures, and religious writing. Complementing this research, her teaching portfolio spans Introduction to University Writing, Reading and Writing about Selected Topics, and advanced seminars on Topics in British Literature, all of which emphasize community-based modes of writing, post-medieval adaptations of medieval texts, and the construction of gender in medieval and modern contexts.

Across her recent publications she interrogates non-binary gender identities in hagiographic texts, the intersection of religion and sexuality, and Romantic re-imaginings of medieval motifs, illustrating a consistent thematic arc that blends rigorous archival work with contemporary gender theory.