Awards:
Donald F. Bletz Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2004
The current Department Chair and Associate Professor of English, Professor Cornelius received his Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island. He specializes in early British literature, teaching courses that include Chaucer, British Literature 1200-1700, Arthurian literature and film, Shakespeare, The History and Structure of the English Language, and seminars on Robert Burns and gay and lesbian literature. He has published in numerous journals, including Fifteenth-Century Studies, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, CLUES, White Crane Journal, The Delta Epsilon Sigma Journal, Magazine Americana, and SCOTIA: A Journal of Scottish Studies. He has an article on Chaucer’s ploughman in the anthology Black Earth, Ivory Tower, an article entitled “Sex and Punishment in Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’” forthcoming in Bloom’s Literary Themes: Sexuality and “Gawain’s Unfulfilled/Unfulfilling Quest” in Bloom’s Literary Themes: Quests. An article on spatial identity and the tale of Bluebeard is forthcoming, as is an article on adaptation theory and the film versions of the Nancy Drew Mystery Series. Professor Cornelius is editor, with Melanie E. Gregg, of the collection Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on the Popular Literature of Girl Sleuths (McFarland, 2008), for which he wrote an article on technology and masculinity in Nancy Drew as well as the critical introduction.
Professor Cornelius is also an award-winning novelist, penning the works Creating Man (Vineyard Press, 2001) and the popular parody novel Susan Slutt, Girl Detective (co-authored with Kate Emburg, Vineyard Press, 2003). His latest novel, The Ascension, was released by Breakneck Books in April 2007. He has also published short fiction in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Velvet Mafia, The Egg Box, The Spillway Review, Future Mysterious Anthology Magazine, CreamDrops, and Encore. A reference text he wrote/edited was released by SynSine Press in 2006, while another on Geoffrey Chaucer was released by Chelsea House in 2007. Professor Cornelius has just finished editing a third reference text on Metaphysical Poetry. Professor Cornelius also teaches the creative writing courses at Wilson and organizes the annual Writers Series. Professor Cornelius is also the faculty adviser to the student literary magazine, the Bottom Shelf Review, as well as the Wilson College Dramatics Society, the Kittochtinny Players. In his spare time, Michael enjoys reading, writing, tennis, and BBC-America. You can visit him on the web at michaelgcornelius.com.