{{short description|English-Canadian medievalist, literary critic and religious historian}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}} '''Nicholas Watson''' is an English-Canadian [[medievalist]], [[literary critic]], [[religious historian]], and author. He is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English at [[Harvard University]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://scholar.harvard.edu/nwatson/biocv | accessdate=31 March 2015 | title=Life in Brief: Nicholas Watson}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://english.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/watson/|website=Harvard University: Dept. of English|title=Nicholas Watson, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature|accessdate=4 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180402192203/https://english.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/watson/|archive-date=2 April 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Education and early career== Nicholas Watson was raised in [[Winchester, England|Winchester]], England.<ref name="Harvard2002">{{cite web|url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/02.07/03-watson.html|title=Visions and magic: Medievalist Watson decodes some of history's most recalcitrant texts|last=Potier|first=Beth|publisher=Harvard University|work=Harvard Gazette|date=7 February 2002|accessdate=31 March 2015}}</ref> After an undergraduate education at the [[University of Cambridge]] and graduate work with [[Vincent Gillespie]] at [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], he began his scholarly career with a 1987 dissertation at the [[University of Toronto]] on the Yorkshire hermit [[Richard Rolle]].<ref name="Harvard2002" /> Watson is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English at [[Harvard University|Harvard]]; before joining the faculty at Harvard he taught at the [[University of Western Ontario]] from 1990 to 2001.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2001/4/18/medieval-lit-scholar-tenured-pnicholas-watson/ | title=Medieval Lit. Scholar Tenured|first=William|last=Rasmussen|date=18 April 2001|work=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|accessdate=31 March 2015}}</ref>

==Career== Watson has written on [[vernacular]]ity, gender, religious censorship, [[Ceremonial magic|ritual magic]], and [[Christian mysticism|mystical literature]]; he has also edited and translated important works from medieval Latin and [[Middle English]]. He is credited with introducing the concept of "vernacular theology" to literary and religious studies.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/5517/03.04.05.html?sequence=1 | last=Rice | first=Nicole | work=The Medieval Review | date=3 April 2005 | accessdate=31 March 2015| title = Review of Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, Duncan Robertson, Nancy Warren, eds. ''The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature''}}</ref> His scholarship has explored figures such as [[Julian of Norwich]], [[William Langland]], [[Marguerite Porete]], [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], [[John of Morigny]], [[Richard Rolle]], the [[Pearl Poet]], and Archbishop [[Thomas Arundel]].<ref name="Harvard2002" />

==Awards== In 1990 he was awarded the [[John Polanyi|John Charles Polanyi]] Prize.<ref>[http://www.cou.on.ca/about/chairs-and-awards/john-charles-polanyi-prizes/prize-winners John Charles Polanyi Prize Winners]</ref> His research has been supported by the Canadian [[Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council]], the [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|Guggenheim Foundation]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/15425-nicholas-watson|accessdate=31 March 2015|title=Nicholas Watson: Guggenheim Fellow|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403011128/http://www.gf.org/fellows/15425-nicholas-watson|archivedate=3 April 2015}}</ref> the American Council of Learned Societies,<ref>[https://www.acls.org/research/fellow.aspx?cid=ed4ca841-bb3b-dc11-bc4a-000c2903e717 Nicholas J. Watson F'08: ACLS Fellow]</ref> and the [[Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/12/religion-in-the-vernacular/ | title=Religion in the vernacular: Nicholas Watson traces the decline of the clergy and the rise of the laity | publisher=Harvard University|work=Harvard Gazette|date= 18 December 2008 |accessdate=31 March 2015}}</ref> In 2016 he was named a Fellow of the [[Medieval Academy of America]].

==Works== * [https://books.google.com/books?id=LJtulvaT7QQC ''Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority''] (1991) * (with Anne Savage) [https://books.google.com/books?id=_oUF4_Z5bMMC ''Anchoritic Spirituality:'' Ancrene Wisse ''and Associated Works''] (1991) * [https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2865345 "Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel's Constitutions of 1409"] (1995) * [https://books.google.com/books?id=mA80vBUI3osC ''Richard Rolle:'' Emendatio vitae ''and'' Orationes ad honorem nominis Ihesu] (1995) * (with Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans) [https://books.google.com/books?id=4VULAQAAMAAJ ''The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520''] (1999) * [https://books.google.com/books?id=aUr31ZoNGuAC&pg=PA539 "The Middle English Mystics"] in ''The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature'', ed. David Wallace (1999) * (with Fiona Somerset) [https://books.google.com/books?id=cyilh0fdX0oC ''The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity''] (2003) * (with Jacqueline Jenkins) [https://books.google.com/books?id=TnMfp2ddSFYC ''The Writings of Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love''] (2006) * (with Fiona Somerset) [https://ohiostatepress.org/index.htm?books/book%20pages/somerset-watson-truth.html ''Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media''] (2015) * (with Cristina Maria Cervone) [https://www.pennpress.org/9780812253900/what-kind-of-a-thing-is-a-middle-english-lyric/ ''What Kind of Thing Is a Middle English Lyric?''] (2022) * [https://www.pennpress.org/9780812298345/balaams-ass-vernacular-theology-before-the-english-reformation/ ''Balaam's Ass: Vernacular Theology before the English Reformation''] (2022)

==References== {{reflist|2}}

==External links== * [https://harvard.academia.edu/NicholasWatson Nicholas Watson's Academia.edu page] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20180402192203/https://english.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/watson/ Nicholas Watson's faculty profile] * [http://scholar.harvard.edu/nwatson/recent-publications List of recent publications]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Nicholas}} [[Category:American literary critics]] [[Category:American medievalists]] [[Category:Canadian medievalists]] [[Category:British medievalists]] [[Category:Harvard University faculty]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Chaucer scholars]] [[Category:20th-century American writers]] [[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]] [[Category:University of Toronto alumni]] [[Category:English historians]] [[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]] [[Category:Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America]]