You’ve reached the “Home” page of my website: so let me say a few words about myself.

While I’d like to describe myself as a world-famous world traveller, I think it would be more honest to admit that I am a relatively unknown Medievalist who teaches English and linguistics classes on the plains of northern Colorado. I first became interested in the Middle Ages because of my love for all things old; unsurprisingly, the English texts I focus on in my scholarship are those from the Anglo-Saxon period, including Beowulf, the oldest English poem that most people ever read.

A seventeenth century book bound in a fifteenth-century manuscript bifolium

In my spare time, I am a reader and a collector of books. In my leisure reading, I read mostly science fiction, although I occasionally read mysteries, “literary fiction” (as if some fiction were not literary), and other things. I rarely read non-fiction or medieval fantasy, although sometimes I do. My book collection currently focuses on “literary” fiction and science fiction as well; I buy signed first editions when I can (and when I can afford to), but one of my great pleasures is prowling through used bookstores, searching for books I can use. Finding a real bargain is always a thrill. Some of my favorite contemporary authors are Jonathan Lethem, Kim Stanley Robinson, Walter Mosley, Maureen McHugh, Ursula K LeGuin, C J Cherryh, and J G Ballard. Click on "Tom's Top Ten" for a list of my favorite recent books.

Recently, I have become interested in books like that pictured here, where a medieval manuscript has been "recycled" in the binding of a later printed book. Such re-used manuscripts stand as a fascinating historical example, where medieval manuscripts were valued more for the material they were made from than for the content of their texts.

People looking for me can often find me in my office on UNC’s campus, or (if there are papers I need to grade) hanging out in a local coffeeshop. Sometimes I try to test my rusty and aging basketball skills against the undergraduates at the UNC rec center. In the summer of 2002, I spent a week helping to build a set of stone steps up the side of a hill at the site of the medieval Chateau of Gicon in Provence.

In 2004, I spent some time in France, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium, where I found that my French was better than I thought, and that my German was as bad as I thought.

In 2005, I travelled to two conferences, one in Leeds (UK) and one in Munich. I'll count both as successful, although my German is now, perhaps, not quite as bad as I thought.

I grew up in Ohio, got my PhD at Ohio State, and moved to Colorado in 1994. I live in Greeley and enjoy it: the smell is not so bad, and it’s a nice size and the people are mostly friendly. I still think King Soopers is a funny name for a grocery store, but I try to go to the Stampede most summers (I went in 2005). I do enjoy travelling (or, rather, I enjoy some aspects of travelling) and hope to return to Europe as often as I can afford it. I am a sports fan, to a certain degree: some of my favorite phrases when watching sporting events on TV are “Stupid Buckeyes,” “Stupid Rockies” and so on.