Sonya Louise Veck, PhD

Associate Professor of English and Catholic Studies

School of Arts & Sciences

About Me

I am curious about early literature and language especially in the Medieval period. Prior to my arrival at the University of Mary, I was a teacher-scholar at the University of Stavanger in Norway where I enjoyed bringing international scholars to campus for Språkforum and visiting various places in Spain, Bavaria, Germany, Israel, and England for conferences and symposia. Other favorite roles included leading programs at the Norwegian Study Center at the University of York and teaching poetry at the Kartause in Gaming, Austria for Franciscan University. I enjoy reading, traveling, and cross-country skiing.

Why I’m At Mary

I love teaching about the faith in Catholic studies courses and contributing to the wonderful spirit of hospitality at the University of Mary! Reading literature with students and fellow faculty is also a privilege and a pleasure like no other.

Expertise

I enjoy researching and teaching about Old English poetry, Middle English romance and dream vision, The Gawain Poet, Shakespeare, Sigrid Undset, and J.R.R. Tolkien. I have conducted research on the features of Old English poetry in Middle English insular romance; somnambulism in alliterative revival verse; rhetoric in late courtly love poems, and the wounded body in saints' lives, among other interests.

Veck, Sonya Louise. (forthcoming in 2024) Shakespeare's Debt to Chaucer: Constancie, Counterpoise, and Newfanglenesse in Much Ado About Nothing. Modern Takes on Past English Language Stages. Eds. O. Traxel and M. Kirner-Ludwig. utzverlag publishing, Munich.

Lundblad, Sonya Louise Veck (2021) Nature and the Immutable Necessity of Suffering in Sigrid Undset’s The Wreath. St. Austin Review. ISSN 2334-5934.

Lundblad, Sonya Louise (2020) Old Englishness in King Horn and Athelston. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527548497.

Lundblad, Sonya Louise (2010) Quat is this Fairy Burial Mound?: The Gawain-poet’s Green Moment in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I: Standing in the Shadow of the Master: Chaucerian Influences and Interpretations. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-1958-9.

Lundblad, Sonya Louise (2008) Chaucerian Counterpoise in The Canterbury Tales: Implications of Newfangleness and Suffisaunce for the 21st Century Reader. I: The Canterbury Tales Revisited: 21st Century Interpretations. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781847186133.

Lundblad, Sonya Louise Veck (2004) The Eichstaat Papers: Communitas in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. St. Austin Review. ISSN 2334-5934. Volume 4. Hefte 5. s.24-27.

Education

PhD (Literary Studies): University of Denver, 2006
MA (English): Colorado State University, 1999