Associate Professor

About

  • Office Hours:

    Spring 2015 : TR 2-3 and by appointment
  • Role:

    Faculty
  • Position:

    • Associate Professor
  • Concentration:

    • Medieval Literature & Language (Germanic)
  • Department:

    • English
  • Education:

    • PhD
  • Curriculum Vitae:

Biography

William Marvin took his B.A. in German Literature at the University of Denver, and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Between these degrees he spent several years at the Eberhard-Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany, studying philology and translating for the Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik (Niemeyer Verlag).  In these years he had the luck to live in the purlieus of the hunting ground of the Dukes of Württemberg, to follow its paths in woods full of roe deer and red deer, to camp in castle ruins, and to read philology in magnificent library collections.

After two years of teaching at Carleton College, Dr. Marvin came to CSU English to profess as a medievalist working in the languages and literatures of Germanic antiquity. His researches into the craft and textuality of the hunt were published in Hunting Law and Ritual in Medieval English Literature (D.S. Brewer, 2006). He is currently working on mythologies of migration-age Europe. He teaches courses on Old English, Beowulf, Chaucer, Arthurian romance, Germanic epic and saga, Indo-European mythology, history of the English language, and Shakespeare.

In spite of his eccentric education, it is hard to tell if Dr. Marvin has changed one jot from his undergrad self.  He still dresses like a Texas kid who grew up in a speed-shop, talks like one no less, and still rides the same old motorbike that has got him to school since the age of 19.

Courses