Daniel Birkholz is a Distinguished Teaching Professor and Associate Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin.
His essays have appeared in The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, New Medieval Literatures, Exemplaria: Medieval / Early Modern / Theory, and Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography, as well as in scholarly collections such as The Post-Historical Middle Ages (Palgrave) and Mapping Medieval Geographies (Cambridge).
His first book, The King’s Two Maps: Cartography and Culture in Thirteenth-Century England (Routledge, 2004), was awarded The Nebenzahl Prize, by the Newberry Library (Chicago)’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography.
His second book, Harley Manuscript Geographies: Literary History and the Medieval Miscellany, was published by Manchester University Press in June 2020. Please see: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526140401/
Prof. Birkholz’s third book, in progress and currently under review, is entitled: Women Who Walk on Maps: Essays in Cartographic Reception and Map-Biography.
Other long-term projects include We Have to Invent Him: Harley Lyrics, Hereford Maps, and the Life of Roger de Breynton, c.1290-1351 (experimental biography meets literary criticism meets the history of cartography), and a related Digital Humanities / documentary life-records project: “Atlas of a Medieval Life: The Itineraries of Roger de Breynton.” Please see: https://sites.utexas.edu/atlasofamedievallife/
As a Provost’s Teaching Fellow (2018-2021), Prof. Birkholz (with English Department graduate student Liz Fischer) is currently developing a pilot course building on this material: a Medieval Digital Research Lab that features team-based, project-oriented experiential learning and hands-on new technology exposure, while involving both undergraduate and graduate students in original faculty research. This course will satisfy recently instituted curricular needs in both the English Department’s Digital Certificate track and the UT Graduate School’s Digital Studies Portfolio.
In 2020, Professor Birkholz was admitted into UT Austin’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
In 2017, Birkholz was recipient of the Al and Judy Shoaf Award, a biennial Best Essay Prize from the journal Exemplaria; and also received the English Department’s Outstanding Service Award.
In 2016, Prof. Birkholz received the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. He is also a past recipient of the Humanities Research Award (2015-2018) in the College of Liberal Arts.
In 2015, Birkholz received both the Raymond Dickson Centennial Endowed Teaching Fellowship and the Silver Spurs Centennial Teaching Fellowship from The University of Texas at Austin. In 2008 he was awarded the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award by UT-Austin. Before coming to UT, Birkholz was Assistant Professor of English at Pomona College (Claremont, CA), where in 2002 he received the Wig Distinguished Professorship Award, for excellence in teaching and research.
A 2009-10 Solmsen Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities, Birkholz’s previous fellowships include exchanges at Cambridge University (Downing College, 2002) and the Árni Magnusson Manuscript Institute in Reykjavík, Iceland (1994-95), plus grants for archival research at the Beinecke Library, the Newberry Library, the British Library, the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, and more.
Prof. Birkholz has also spent two semesters on teaching exchange in France, at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle–Paris III (2018) and at the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (2012). In 2019 he served as Co-Director of the UT English Department’s Summer Oxford Program, while also teaching a course on Arthurian Literature and Film. Previous service appointments include five years as Director of the English Honors Program and another as Associate Graduate Advisor.
Birkholz received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1999; his M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1991; and his B.A. from Carleton College (Northfield, MN) in 1990.