James Simpson

Biography

James Simpson is the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English at Harvard University (2004-). He was formerly based at the University of Cambridge, where he was a University Lecturer in English (1989-99) and Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English (1999-2003). He is a Life Fellow of Girton College. Simpson was educated at Scotch College Melbourne, the University of Melbourne (BA) and the University of Oxford (MPhil). He holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge. His books include: Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (1990) ; Sciences and the Self in Medieval Poetry (1995); Reform and Cultural Revolution, volume 2 in the Oxford English Literary History (2002) (winner of the British Academy Sir Israel Gollancz Prize, 2007); and Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents ( 2007). His book Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition was recently published by Oxford University Press (2010).