Genius

My students and I are annotating medieval poetry on Lit Genius (an outgrowth of Rap Genius). In my undergraduate electives, ENGL3393: Chaucer and ENGL4424: Middle English Alliterative Poetry, each student contributes ten annotations to the texts of poems we’ve discussed in class. Annotations can include text, image, video, and links and have an informal tone. This is a low-stakes form of publication, as annotations are publicly viewable on Lit Genius. Students may choose to use their real names or a pseudonym on Genius.com. I review and respond to annotations as they are created. Since 2014, Boston College undergraduates have contributed hundreds of annotations to the Genius texts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the anonymous alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

poems annotated

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  • fitt 1
  • fitt 2
  • fitt 3
  • fitt 4
• Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
  • The General Prologue
  • The Knight’s Tale
  • The Miller’s Prologue
  • The Miller’s Tale
  • The Reeve’s Prologue
  • The Reeve’s Tale
  • The Cook’s Tale
  • The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
  • The Wife of Bath’s Tale
  • The Summoner’s Tale
  • The Squire’s Tale
  • The Franklin’s Tale
  • The Pardoner’s Prologue
  • The Pardoner’s Tale
  • The Prioress’s Tale
  • The Tale of Sir Thopas
  • The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

read more

• “Displaying a ‘Genius’ for the digital humanities,” Boston College Chronicle 30 October 2014