WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., July 11, 2016 — West Liberty University faculty member, Dr. Dominique Hoche, performed the role of editor in a scholarly book on medieval texts recently. Hoche is an associate professor of English in the Department of Humanities of the College of Liberal Arts. The publication is entitled: The Prose Brut and other Late Medieval Chronicles.
“I was pleased to serve as one of three on the team of editors for this publication that honors the work of Professor Lister Matheson. His influence as an eminent scholar is widely known and appreciated,” Hoche said. Matheson died in 2012, and at the time of his death was professor of English and Medieval Studies at Michigan State University.
Dr. Hoche, who has been a member of the WLU faculty since 2011, wrote the introduction for the book, assisted in editing the essays, and coordinated the origination of the project, guiding the process all the way to final publication in March 2016. Matheson was Hoche’s dissertation advisor.
The essays comment on the medieval chronicle tradition, shedding light on history writing, manuscript studies and the history of the book, and the post-medieval reception of such texts, as they honor Matheson.
The book studies the histories of chronicles composed in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and onwards, with a focus on texts belonging to or engaging with the Prose Brut tradition. (Prose Brut is named after Brutus, the epic founder of Britain, and the chronicles are both historical and legendary.)
The contributors examine the composition, dissemination and reception of historical texts written in Anglo-Norman, Latin and English, including the Prose Brut chronicle (c. 1300 and later), Castleford’s Chronicle (c. 1327), and Nicholas Trevet’s Les Cronicles (c. 1334), looking at questions of the processes of writing, rewriting, printing and editing history.
According to Boydell & Brewer, the academic press responsible for publishing the work, the volume honors the pioneering work of Professor Matheson, whose research in this area demonstrated that a full understanding of medieval historical literature demands attention to both the content of the works in question and to the material circumstances of producing those works.
Hoche was part of a three-person team of editors. The other two are Jaclyn Rajsic, a lecturer in Medieval Literature in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London and Erik Kooper who taught Old and Middle English at Utrecht University until his retirement in 2007.
Hoche, a resident of Wheeling, teaches medieval and early modern British Literature and is active in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
For more information on the book, please visit boydellandbrewer.com. For more information on the College of Liberal Arts, please visit westliberty.edu/liberal-arts.