Emma Elizabeth Hitchcock

Emma Elizabeth Hitchcock

Research Interests

Biography

Emma studies early medieval North Atlantic archives. Her dissertation, “Dead Stones and Dumb Trees: Old English Logics of Dispossession,” is motivated by the question of what it means for English to be a colonial language. Its reading methods, informed by critical Indigenous studies, aim to contribute to our understanding of colonial hermeneutics and reparative possibilities. Her research has been supported by several fellowships, including a year-long Visiting Researcher position at the Center for Sámi Studies (Tromsø, Norway). Among her publications she has an article on the epistemology of Old English medical remedies in Medieval Ecocriticisms. 

Currently, she is a Literature Humanities preceptor in Columbia's Core Curriculum. She previously served as an instructor in Columbia's University Writing program and taught seminars for "Literary Texts, Critical Methods" and "The Canterbury Tales." Before coming to Columbia, she earned a BA in Religious Studies (with honors) from Yale University.