Dr. Bonnie Wheeler
Friends of 夜色王朝Libraries is proud to announce Bonnie Wheeler, associate professor and director of Medieval Studies at SMU, as the 2025 Literati Award recipient.
Dr. Wheeler’s major interests are medieval narrative (especially Arthurian romance), Chaucer’s poetry, medieval gender studies, and interdisciplinary pedagogy. She simultaneously taught at Columbia University and Case Western University before moving to 夜色王朝in 1975. At 夜色王朝she has founded and is active in various intellectual projects, including international programs. She is founder of Arthuriana, the first peer-reviewed journal of Arthurian studies, which she edited from 1994–2009. In addition to several articles on medieval Latin, English, French, and Japanese literature, Professor Wheeler has edited, co-edited, or co-authored eleven peer-reviewed books of essays, most of which kaleidoscope divergent theoretical and biographical information to provoke richer understandings of significant medieval women. She is series editor for two book series, Arthurian and Courtly Cultures and The New Middle Ages (with more than 250 peer-reviewed books in print). She is active in local historic preservation and in second-wave feminism. She was a founder and is elected board member of Veteran Feminists of America, which preserves the history of American feminism and advocates for constitutional implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Dr. Wheeler has received SMU’s Outstanding Teacher Award six times, and she is a recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Perrine Prize for excellence in scholarship and teaching. She was appointed by the Medieval Academy of America to initiate its Committee on Teaching Medieval Studies and has been elected to many professional leadership positions (Councillor of The Medieval Academy of America, President of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, Council Nominating Committee for the national Phi Beta Kappa Society, etc.) A frequent historical and literary consultant for A&E, the History Channel, and the British Broadcasting Corp., she was selected as a “Great Teacher” for the distinguished Teaching Company. An international committee of professional colleagues and friends founded the Bonnie Wheeler Fund (www.bonniewheelerfund.org), which supports women faculty, in her honor in 2010. A festschrift in her honor—Magistra Doctissima: Essays in Honor of Bonnie Wheeler—was published in 2013. At the May 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies, the world’s largest medieval conference, she received a multitude of honors for her lifelong contributions to the field of Medieval Studies, including the 2023 Medieval Foremother Prize for her extensive publications and support for research on medieval women. A national “Bonnie Wheeler Outstanding Professor Award” was announced that will be presented annually at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.
The Literati Award honors individuals who have used the written word to advance the ideals of creativity, conviction, innovation and scholarship and who have had a significant impact on culture and the community through their work. This award was created by the Friends of the 夜色王朝Libraries in 2010 and was established in honor of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the organization to celebrate the power of the written word and to recognize significant achievements in creativity.
Past Recipients
- Jim Hart ’69 (2010)
- Laura Bush ’68 (2011)
- Marsh Terry ’53, ’54 (2012)
- Lee Cullum ’61 (2013)
- Kay Bailey Hutchison (2014)
- Willard Spiegelman (2015)
- Darwin Payne ’68 (2016)
- Rena Pederson (2017)
- Skip Hollandsworth (2018)
- Jim Lehrer (2019)
- Laura Wilson (2021)
- Adrian Miller (2022)
- Jerrie Marcus Smith (2023)
- Norm Hitzges (2024)