Kisha Tracy

Ph.D., University of Connecticut (Medieval Studies - English, French, and Latin)
M.A., University of Connecticut (Medieval Studies - English, French, and Latin)
B.A., University of Evansville (English, Summa cum Laude)
Certificate in College Teaching; May 2016; Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts

Medieval Disability Studies (esp. Mental Health)
Medieval British Literature
Ancient Medieval World Literature
Chaucerian and Middle English Literature
Memory and Recollection
European (esp. French) Medieval Literature 400-1450
Medieval African Literature and Culture

Cultural Heritage
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Books

Memory and Confession in Middle English Literature. New Middle Ages. Palgrave Pivot, 2017.

Collections Edited

• The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist. Eds. John P. Sexton and Kisha Tracy. Punctum, 2018.
• Teaching the Middle Ages and Renaissance with New Techniques and Technologies. Ed. Kisha Tracy.
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART) 24.1 (2017).

Articles

• “Increasing Accessibility and Access to the Medieval through Open Textbooks.” New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession (special issue on “Access”) 6 (2025).
• “Exploring and Teaching the Medieval in Afro/Africanfuturism.” Pedagogy (special issue Crumpling the Timeline) 25.1 (2025): 111-122.
• Keyser, Wendy, Wafa Unus, Jonathan Harvey, Sean Goodlett, Danette Day, Kisha Tracy, Scott Tyner, and Eric Budd. “Empathy in Action: Developing a Sense of Belonging with the Pedagogy of ‘Real Talk’.” Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice 19.4 (2022).
• “Maternal Lament and Misremembering in Dispute between Mary and the Cross.” Grief and Gender and the Middle Ages. Ed. Lee Templeton (Brill: 2021). 37-52.
• Introduction: Bisclavret.” Medieval Disability Sourcebook. Ed. Cam McNabb (punctum: 2020). 233-241.
•  “Speech: Medieval Representations of Speech Impairments.” Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages. Eds. Jonathan Hsy, Joshua Eyler, and Tory Pearman (Bloomsbury: 2020). 99-113.
• “Trauma and New England Museums.” State of Museums: Voices from the Field. Eds. Rebekah Beaulieu, Dawn E Salerno, Mark S. Gold (MuseumsEtc, 2018). 43-64.
• “From the Monk’s Cell to the Professor’s Office.” The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist. Eds. John P. Sexton and Kisha Tracy (punctum, 2018). 145-159.
• “Navigating Strategies for Teaching Medieval Literature with Google Maps.” SMART 24.1 (2017): 45-60.
• Tracy, Kisha, Jessica Blouin, Sarah Farrell, Rebecca Johnson, and Kathleen Morrissey. “Chaucer Pilgrimage Site: Pedagogical Benefits of Combining Physical and Digital Learning Spaces.” The Leaflet. New England Association of Teachers of English. 113.1 (2016): 11-18.
• “Julian of Norwich and the Sin of Forgetting.” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 41.2 (2015): 148-62.
• "Memory, Recollection, and Forgetting in the Middle Ages.” Medieval Culture: A Compendium of Critical Topics. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamental Aspects and Conditions of the European Middle Ages (de Gruyter, 2015): 1020-38.

Public Scholarship

• The Accessible Medievalist. Podcast series, starting in February 2026.
• “Thinking Creatively about Funding for OER.” Breaking It Open: A Newsletter of the MA Department of Higher Education OLER Advisory Council (March 2026): 1180 words.
• “Why Study the Middle Ages? Because #Medieval…SoMuchMore.” Arc Blog (29 Aug. 2022): 1163 words.
• “Unclouding the Rainbow in History.” Gay Rag: FSU’s LGBTQ+ Newsletter (Feb. 2021): 1235 words.
• “Curating Medieval Mental Disability.” All of Us (22 Apr. 2020): 1284 words.
• “The Making of a Disability Heritage Exhibit.” Activist History Review (28 Oct. 2019): 1692 words.
• “Why You Don’t Need to Be French or Catholic to Mourn the Notre Dame Fire.” Washington Post (17 Apr. 2019): 1094 words.
• “Werewolves as Metaphors for Domestic Abusers.” The Public Medievalist (2019): 2838 words.
• “ A Community of Grieving Readers: The Book of the Duchess .” Reading Medieval, Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. 805 words.
• Covino, Katharine, and Kisha Tracy. “Making the Invisible Visible.” Hybrid Pedagogy (27 Sept. 2017): 3128 words.
• “Confessions of a Self-Taught College Instructor: Embracing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” Hybrid Pedagogy (13 Sept. 2016): 2093 words.

Awards

• Awardee, Crocker Center for Civic Engagement Community Engagement Project Grant; 2025-26
• Awardee, Deans’ Anti-Racism Fund, “Leveraging Fitchburg Campus and City Cultural Heritage”; Fitchburg State University; 2024-25
• Awardee, Identity-Based Programming Fund, “John Hughes”; Fitchburg State University; Fall 2023
• Awardee, Course of Distinction for Open Educational Resource (for World Literature I); Massachusetts Colleges Online; Spring 2023
• Fitchburg State University Vincent J. Mara Excellence in Teaching Award; 2022
• Awardee, Course Enhancement Grant, Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies African Studies Center; Spring 2021
• Awardee, Open Educational Resource Adoption Grant; Fitchburg State University; Spring 2020
• Fitchburg State University Faculty Research and Scholarship Award; 2018
• Awardee, 2016 Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowship; Project: “Sherwood Forest Archaeological Training Field School 2016”; Spring 2016
• Awardee, Fitchburg Anti-Violence Education Faculty Grant; Fitchburg State University; Fall 2015
• Harrod Lecturer, Fitchburg State University; Oct 2012

Current Projects

• The Medieval World: Sickness, Medicine, and Health (four volumes). Bloomsbury. Ed. of Disability volume.
• “Lesson: Medieval Disability and the Malian Epic of Sundiata.” Teaching the Once and Future Middle Ages: a Global History for a Global World. Rowan and Littlefield. Ed. Elizabeth Burbridge. 
• “Life of Saint Dymphna.” B-Sides: Non-canonical Medieval Texts and Why We Love Them. Ed. Melissa Ridley Elmes.
• “Disabled Saints and Healing Miracles in Medieval Hagiography.” Oxford Handbooks of Disability and Literatures in English. Oxford University Press. Eds. Tory Pearman, Rick Godden, Leah Pope Parker. 

Medieval Academy of America
Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages
The Lone Medievalist
Open Education Association