Elizabeth Harper is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of French specializing in late medieval francophone lyric poetry under the direction of Professor Deborah McGrady. Her dissertation, currently titled "Making Lyric Matter in Late Medieval France," seeks to complicate current assumptions about the value of lyric poetry in 14th and 15th century France through a study of poets' efforts to redefine the composition, reception, and material rendering of lyric verse as a unique form of communication. Her research interests include lyric theory (medieval and modern), historical poetics, form and communication, reading and reception, tectual hybridity, manuscript studies and material culture. She currently serves as a Graduate Representative to the Medieval Studies Program at UVA.