This concise and lively survey introduces students with no prior knowledge to Chaucer, and particularly to the 'Canterbury Tales'. Written in an invitingly inclusive yet intellectually sophisticated style, it provides essential facts about the poet, including a biography and sketch of his major works, as well as offering a framework for thinking creatively about his writing. Chapters focus upon and promote an engaged reading of the 'Canterbury Tales', introducing previous scholarly opinion as necessary. John Hirsh encourages the student to read the work less in terms of literary realism, with a focus upon individual pilgrims and the way they react to each other, than as a socially constructed production in which the persons and the purposes of the pilgrims are realized by a series of considered constructions which indicate both authorial meaning and cultural context. Readers also gain a sense of Chaucer's other works, for example why his translation of Boethius was important, and what the background was to works such as 'Troilus and Criseyde', the 'Book of the Duchess', and the 'Parliament of Fowls'. Consideration of themes such as gender crosses over various chapters. The book provides the ideal aid to understanding and appreciating Geoffrey Chaucer and his works.

Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature)

Literature & Fiction

Hirsh, John C.

British & Irish

Blackwell Pub.

This concise and lively survey introduces students with no prior knowledge to Chaucer, and particularly to The Canterbury Tales. Provides essential facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote. 
<ul> <li>Provides essential facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. 
</li> <li>Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. 
</li> <li>Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote.</li> </ul>

Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales: A Short Introduction

Biographies & Memoirs

Wiley/Blackwell

Hope Emily Allen: Medieval Scholarship and Feminism

Pilgrim Books

TThis book is concerned with the ways in which undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Wadham College, Oxford, and Clare College, Cambridge, have worked with ethnic minority K-6 children in a series of university and college programs in Washington and London.  The intention of these programs is two-fold: to support the academic work in which the children are engaged, whether by working one-on-one, in a classroom setting, or in small seminar-like groups, and also to show them what higher education is, and can be, in the hope that when the time came their understanding of it, acquired and developed at an early age, might encourage them to proceed onward in their education.The account is told in the first person, from the point-of-view of a Georgetown University professor specializing in English medieval literature but also invested in urban literacy, who, aided by post-doctoral studies at Berkeley, altered the direction of a program already existing at Georgetown University, and subsequently aided in the development of like-programs in Oxford and Cambridge.  The book serves two distinct purposes: it describes the purpose and practices of the urban programs with which it is concerned, and it addresses the ways in which these programs sought to encourage and support minority expectation with respect to academic achievement, encounter with others, and, in the London programs, eventual university application. his book is concerned with the ways in which undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Wadham College, Oxford, and Clare College, Cambridge, have worked with ethnic minority K-6 children in a series of university and college programs in Washington and London.  The intention of these programs is two-fold: to support the academic work in which the children are engaged, whether by working one-on-one, in a classroom setting, or in small seminar-like groups, and also to show them what higher education is, and can be, in the hope that when the time came their understanding of it, acquired and developed at an early age, might encourage them to proceed onward in their education.The account is told in the first person, from the point-of-view of a Georgetown University professor specializing in English medieval literature but also invested in urban literacy, who, aided by post-doctoral studies at Berkeley, altered the direction of a program already existing at Georgetown University, and subsequently aided in the development of like-programs in Oxford and Cambridge.  The book serves two distinct purposes: it describes the purpose and practices of the urban programs with which it is concerned, and it addresses the ways in which these programs sought to encourage and support minority expectation with respect to academic achievement, encounter with others, and, in the London programs, eventual university application. “This very well written book is a testament to the importance of not just providing academic opportunity to marginalized children, but truly fostering aspiration in a non-judgmental way. The use of older students to encourage a love of inquiry and knowledge reflects Vygotsky’s theory and reminds us of the value of mentoring…. Hirsh found attitudes change and assumptions are challenged when perspectives are broadened through the interrelationship with others.” —Elizabeth Quinn, Associate Professor of Psychology, Marist College

Vygotsky's Children: Georgetown and Oxbridge Students Meet Urban Youth

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

New Academia Publishing, LLC

This book recounts in detail the negotiations, internal and external struggles, and the outcome of an attempt by HUD, the City of Washington, and several developers to acquire a Washington, D.C. apartment complex known as Sursum Corda. The book begins with an account of a particularly horrific murder that took place in Sursum Corda in 2004, and shows how it was used, in the press and elsewhere, to attack the Community as a whole, and to use it as a reason that the Community should be disbanded, and the land on which it stood be dedicated to other purposes.
It proceeds as a journal, kept intermittently between 2005 and 2017, by Professor John C. Hirsh of Georgetown University, who during that period directed an undergraduate tutorial program there in which Georgetown undergraduates travelled twice a week to instruct the K-6 children who live at Sursum Corda in the Language Arts, primarily in reading and writing. Because of his long association with the community he was appointed a non-voting (because non-resident) member of the Board that directs the Community affairs, as was his former student and friend Shiv Newaldass, a Georgetown graduate, whose family has long lived there.
Such take-overs as the one described here have become common across the country in recent years, and part of the interest of the book lies not only the story of what happened to Sursum Corda, but also in the implications it exposes as to how such negotiations are actually carried on, and the relative power of those who are involved.

Power and Probity in a DC Cooperative: The Life and Death of Sursum Corda

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

New Academia Publishing/VELLUM

Inventing Education: Georgetown Students and D.C. Youth Learn From Each Other

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