Dr. Sarah Downey
Education
- B.A.: Latin, University of the South
- Ph.D.: Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
Biography
Dr. Downey specializes in Old English, medieval Latin and the history of the English language. Her dissertation examines biographies of the Anglo-Saxon hermit Guthlac, whose story was told and retold in a number of languages and media throughout the Middle Ages. She has published in the scholarly journal Traditio and has written reviews for Notes and Queries. She has given conference papers at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Canadian Society of Medievalists Annual Congress and the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. She has also written entries on Guthlac for "The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia." Currently, she is collaborating with the Wheaton College Lexomics Group on an article about sources of Old English poetry and is also working on translations of medieval Latin texts.
Courses
- English Language Skills
- English Composition I and II
- English Grammar and Usage
- History of the English Language
- Introduction to Linguistics
- Chaucer
- Studies in Old and Middle English Literature
Research Interests
Dr. Downey studies the English language in its oldest recorded forms, along with some of the ways in which English has changed over time. Most of the literature she works on is from the Anglo-Saxon period (about 450-1100 C.E.), the time when "Beowulf" was written. A large number of English texts from the Anglo-Saxon period are translations from Latin, so she also studies the Latin language and the enormous influence it has had over English.
In The Classroom
She draws comparisons between ways in which the English language changed in the Middle Ages and ways in which it is changing now. In her classes, she frequently compares Internet-language and text-message-language to forms of English that were written by hand before the printing press.
Academic Department(s)
- Department of English
Academic Program(s)
- B.A. English
