Carla María Thomas
Dr. Carla María Thomas received their BA and MA from Florida State University (2006 and 2008, respectively) and their PhD from New York University (2016). Dr. Thomas’s research focuses on accessibility to the field of Medieval Studies broadly defined and to the literature of their specialized area of Early Middle English literature specifically in two important ways: by analyzing ways the premodern literary field can become more welcoming to scholars of all levels and backgrounds, including practical methods for opening up the classroom; and by editing, translating, and producing research on Early Middle English texts, preferably in Open Access publications where possible. This dedication to accessible premodern research is demonstrated in the publication of their first article on the late 12th-century collection of verse homilies called The Ormulum in 2013 in Volume 20 of SELIM: The Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature . Dr. Thomas’s 2020 publication on expanding the purview of the traditional Medieval English Literature course in U.S. university settings was published in an Open Access edited collection by punctum books titled Disturbing Times: Medieval Pasts, Reimagined Futures .
In their Early Middle English research, Dr. Thomas pays special attention to eschatological poetry and their manuscripts: that is, poems on Judgment Day and death and their surviving witnesses. Aside from “Orm’s Vernacular Latinity” (linked above), they recently published “’Ich nam ofdrad of none dome’: Seeking Judgment in The Owl and the Nightingale” in the journal Early Middle English (vol. 5, no. 1) in April 2024, and in 2019, they published an article titled “The Case of Poema Morale: Old English Homiletic Influence in Twelfth-Century Rhyming Verse” in Remembering the Present: Generative Uses of the Anglo-Saxon Past (Brill). Two articles forthcoming in 2025 include a creative-critical piece that focuses on The Grave (another late 12th-century death poem) and transhistorical connections of lost intimacy in another Open Access edited collection and another on the overview of sexuality in England in a Routledge anthology.
In Spring 2025, Dr. Thomas has a Scholarly and Creative Accomplishment Fellowship to complete a draft of their translation project, tentatively titled The Ormulum: A Modern Prose Translation, which would be the first modern translation of the collection (early rough drafts of some homilies available here). Other works-in-progress include an article on the purposeful emendations to the youngest surviving copy (c. 1300) of Poema Morale that suggests a narrowing of audience to religious women, a playful article on interpreting “Walter” in The Ormulum, a monograph on eschatological poetry in the Early Middle English period titled A Matter of Life and Death: Judgement Day in Early Middle English Poetry, and a digital edition and translation of the surviving copies of Poema Morale, which date from approximately 1190 to 1300.
Dr. Thomas has taught the following, usually in person:
- LIT2030: Interpretation of Poetry
- ENL2012: British Literature to 1798
- ENG3822: Introduction to Literary Studies
- ENL4210: Medieval Literature
- ENL4311: Chaucer
- LIT4383: Women and Literature
- ENL4930: Special Topics - 21st-Century Medieval Monstrosity (typically summer)
- ENG6455: Special Topics - Medieval Gender and Sexuality
- LIN6107: History of English Literature
Coming Spring 2026, Dr. Thomas will teach a Special Topics course on Old English language and literature for the first time in FAU history!
In addition to their academic research, Dr. Thomas is also a founding member of the Medievalists of Color, a founding Executive Board member of RaceB4Race©, and President of the Early Middle English Society. Outside of academia, Dr. Thomas enjoys playing video games like Skyrim and Dragon Age, painting, practicing piano, frolicking on the beach, and losing to their little gremlin at chess.