Biography
Dr. Emily O’Brock completed her PhD in French with distinction at New York University in 2022 and she is currently a de Vries Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Calvin.
Her research examines the literary, cultural, and historical significance of bees in medieval France through the lens of critical animal studies, posthumanism, and ecocriticism in order to demonstrate the unique and exemplary position of bees in the medieval natural hierarchy.
Her book project is titled 'If Small Things Can Be Compared to Great': the Symbolic Ecology of the Honeybee in Medieval France. Her work has been funded by a Chateaubriand and a George Lurcy Fellowship and she was a Lilly Graduate Fellow in the humanities from 2016-2019.
Education
PhD, French Literature, New York University
MPhil, French Literature, New York University
MA, French Literature, Indiana University
BA, French, English, and Gender Studies, Calvin College
Academic Interests
Medieval literature; Animal studies; ecocriticism; posthumanism; visual culture; manuscripts; Intersections in politics, religion, and scholarship; distribution of ideas; Bees
Publications
