Heather Maring
Assistant Professor
University of Missouri-Columbia
Office: LL 546C
(480) 965-3744
E-mail: heather.maring@asu.edu
Office hours: M & W 10:30-12:00
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and received my B.A. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC). After teaching English as a foreign language in Prague, Czech Republic and English as a second language at a St. Louis high school, I returned to the University of Missouri for the MA/Ph.D. program in English Literature, took leave for two years to pursue an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Writer’s Workshop at University of Iowa (1999), and then completed a Ph.D. with dual emphases in medieval literature and creative writing (2005). At UMC I wrote two dissertations, one on poetics in the Old English The Dream of the Rood and the Middle English Pearl, the other a collection of poems (a “creative dissertation”). In my medieval research, I explore the way that early English poems draw upon oral, literary, and ritual forms of signification for their meaning. In addition to co-authoring an annotated bibliography as a companion piece to John Miles Foley’s How to Read an Oral Poem, I have published my work in Oral Tradition, The Midwestern Modern Language Association Journal, and Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairytales (forthcoming). My poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals. From 2001-2006 I worked as an editorial assistant and managing editor for the journal Oral Tradition (see journal.oraltradition.org). I am currently working as an editor on UNESCO’s project to create a Manual on Oral Traditions and Expressions (see portal.unesco.org/culture/en/), a manual that will be distributed to government agencies, communities, and others interested in protecting and honoring the many living oral traditions worldwide.
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and received my B.A. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC). After teaching English as a foreign language in Prague, Czech Republic and English as a second language at a St. Louis high school, I returned to the University of Missouri for the MA/Ph.D. program in English Literature, took leave for two years to pursue an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Writer’s Workshop at University of Iowa (1999), and then completed a Ph.D. with dual emphases in medieval literature and creative writing (2005). At UMC I wrote two dissertations, one on poetics in the Old English The Dream of the Rood and the Middle English Pearl, the other a collection of poems (a “creative dissertation”). In my medieval research, I explore the way that early English poems draw upon oral, literary, and ritual forms of signification for their meaning. In addition to co-authoring an annotated bibliography as a companion piece to John Miles Foley’s How to Read an Oral Poem, I have published my work in Oral Tradition, The Midwestern Modern Language Association Journal, and Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairytales (forthcoming). My poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals. From 2001-2006 I worked as an editorial assistant and managing editor for the journal Oral Tradition (see journal.oraltradition.org). I am currently working as an editor on UNESCO’s project to create a Manual on Oral Traditions and Expressions (see