Walters, Lori

 Dr. Lori J. Walters  (Ph.D. Princeton) specializes in medieval literature. She is the author of over 70 publications, which deal with three main subjects: Christine de Pizan, Medieval Romance, and the allegorical Romance of the Rose.

Dr. Walters’ research typically combines close textual analysis with a consideration of the text’s manuscript context. She obtained a background in paleography and codicology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris. Her current projects often take her back to the Salle des manuscrits of the Bibliothèque nationale where she did the research for her doctoral dissertation. Dr. Walters contributed to the establishment of the History of Text Technologies Research Cluster (HOTT) that is part of the FSU Pathways to Excellence initiative. Information on HOTT can be found at this site

Dr. Walters has recently been named to the editorial board of Digital Philology, a journal published online and in hard copy by the Johns Hopkins University Press.  She contributed to an article in the inaugural issue of the journal.                (Lori J. Walters  Florida State University  “The Foot on Which  He Limps ”)

Dr. Walters collaborates on several digital projects.  Her summary of the Romance of the Rose appears on the site maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

She is currently collaborating on a project to digitize all the manuscripts of Christine de Pizan (over 140 copies), which will be linked to the site dedicated to Christine’s masterpiece, the “Queen’s Manuscript.”  Three documents about the manuscript, authored by Dr Walters, appear on the site:

“Signatures and Anagrams in the Queen's Manuscript (London, British Library, Harley MS 4431)”  http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/waltersanagrams.html

 “Depictions of Books and Parchment Sheets in the Queen’s MS (London, British Library, Harley MS 4431)” http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/waltersbooksandletters.rtf

 “Christine de Pizan's Prologue adreçant a la royne: Translations into Modern French and English” http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/Translations of Prologue.rtf 

On January 18, 2013, Dr Walters gave an invited lecture at the conference on L’Art d’aimer au Moyen Age: Le Roman de la Rose at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Site Mitterand) on the representation of the author figure (Jean de Meun) in two illustrated fifteenth-century manuscripts of the Romance of the Rose.

Professor Walters speaks about her research
I am interested in the intersection of literature, royal ideology, and the process of bookmaking from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. I focus upon female figures, whether the queen, the courtly lady, or the female writer. My current book-length project concerns the fifteenth-century writer Christine de Pizan, focusing on the significance of her role as head of her own scriptorium that produced a large number of the surviving manuscripts of her texts. I envision writing a future study centered upon texts and manuscript collections prepared for the twelfth-century countess Marie de Champagne.

Professor Walters speaks about the Ph.D. program in French:
Two of my students, Anne Ortiz and Sandra Boyer, received scholarships to attend the summer “stage de civilization médiévale” held at the Université de Poitiers. They are photographed here at a stopover at Menton on their way to Poitiers.
The newspaper La Nouvelle République interviewed Anne about her experience studying in the summer program at Poitiers (interview ).  Anne is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Florida State University who obtained an MA at the University of South Florida. Her dissertation deals with Christine de Pizan’s Advision-Cristine as a mirror for France’s queen Ysabel de Bavière.

Medieval seminars taught at FSU:
Spring 2014:  Text, Image, Manuscript, to be offered conjointly with HOTT
Spring 2013: Christine de Pizan and the Queen’s MS
Spring 2012: Chrétien de Troyes and the Arthurian Tradition
Spring 2011: Christine de Pizan in Context

Dissertations directed by Dr. Walters, and placement of her students:
     "Douce chose est que mariage: Exempla and Advice in the Works of Christine de Pizan."  Ph.D. awarded, May 2009. Anne Marie West, Director, Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards, Florida State University, 2009-2012.
    "Parody and Renewal in the Vengeance Raguidel." Geert Steven Pallemans, Tenured Professor and Chair, Foreign Languages and Literatures Department, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
    "The Chastoiement and the Decameron: Rhetorical Examples of Vernacularization." Marco David Roman, Tenured Full Professor, Languages Department, The University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma.
    "La Communauté des Femmes dans Le Livre des Trois Vertus de Christine de Pizan." Xiangyun Zhang, Full Professor, Foreign Languages Department, Emory and Henry College, Emory, Virginia.
    "Le Cuer d'Amours Espris de René d'Anjou comme réécriture du Roman de la Rose et de La Queste del Sang Graal: De la quête d'amour à une redéfinition du moi." Olivia Marancy-Ferrer, Ph.D., Adjunct, Florida Atlantic University.
   
Another former student, Levilson Reis, Associate Professor and Chair, Otterbein University, who completed a dissertation on Clarice Lispector, publishes widely on French medieval literature.  http://www.otterbein.edu/public/About/Faculty/LevilsonReis