Chaucer Scholar to Give Annual Bastian Lecture RELEASED: Mar. 19, 2001 DANVILLE, KY -- Jill Mann, a renowned medievalist and Chaucer scholar will give this year's Bastian Lecture at Centre College. The free lecture entitled, "Wife-Swapping in Medieval Literature," will take place on March 29 at 7:00 p.m. in the Norton Center Board Room on the Centre campus. The Bastian Lecture Series is named after Carol Bastian, Centre Emeritus Professor of English. Each spring a prominent scholar in English or American literary studies is invited to present a public lecture on campus. Dr. Mann will survey a number of medieval stories in which a husband wittingly or unwittingly hands over his wife to another man. She will show that although in most of these stories the wife's role is subordinated to the claims of masculine friendship, in Chaucer's "Franklin's Tale" the husband's surrender of his wife paradoxically affirms their loyalty to each other and gives her honor more importance than his own. Jill Mann, Notre Dame Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire and Geoffrey Chaucer (Harvester-Wheatsheaf Feminist Readings) as well as the coeditor (with Piero Boitani) of The Cambridge Chaucer Companion. She is currently editing The Canterbury Tales and has published numerous articles on Chaucer and other medieval authors. A fellow of the British Academy, Dr. Mann has held a British Academy Research Readership and been president of the New Chaucer Society. -end-     Communications Office Centre College 600 W. Walnut Street Danville, KY 40422 Public Information Coordinator: Telephone 859-238-5714 News and Events Home Page