Gregory Roper (Greg), PhD

Gregory Roper received his PhD from the University of Virginia. In addition to his role as associate professor, he is also the current dean of students. 

• B.A. University of Dallas
• M.A. University of Virginia
• PhD University of Virginia

• Literary Tradition I, II, III, IV
• Medieval Literature, Medieval Drama
• Critical Theory
• Chaucer I and II
• Gawain-poet
• Creative Nonfiction

Gregory Roper, PhD has interests in Middle English literature, rhetoric and composition, literary theory, and pedagogy. He has published essays on Medieval penitential manuals and their influence on late Medieval literature, on the  Canterbury Tales , and on teaching survey courses and literary theory. He has published a book using ancient and medieval notions of imitation to help students write better entitled  The Writer's Workshop . He also enjoys advising students about career plans and graduate school.

• Mastering the Four Arguments. Washington, DC: Regnery Books.  Forthcoming in 2024.
• A Life Well-Lived: A Student Guide to the Education of the Whole Person. University of Dallas, 2023.
• Due Santi and the University of Dallas: Un Piccolo Paradiso.  The History Press, 2020. 
• The Writer’s Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing.  Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007.

• “Philip Neri (1515-1585 CE) at the Catacombs of S. Sebastiano, the Chiesa di San Girolamo della Carita, the Basilica di San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and the Chiesa Nuova.”  People and Places of the Roman Past: An Educated Traveler’s Guide. Ed. Peter Hatlie.  ARC Humanities Press, 2018.    
• “Reverencia Irreverente : Una Aproximacion a La Cultura Occidental a Través del Cuento ‘El Capellan De Monjas’ de Chaucer.” (Irreverent Reverence: An Approach to Western Culture Through Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale). Estudios 116 (Primavera 2016), 113-128. Translation into Spanish by Carlos Gutierrez Lozano.
• “From Nothing to Being: Medieval Lyric and Poetic Form as Entelechy.” The Prospect of Lyric. Ed. Bainard Cowan.  Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture Press, 2012, 77-94.
• “Brighten the Corner Where You Are: How I Found A Way to Marry Teaching and Research and Just Maybe Be Happy.” Studies In Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 11 (Fall 2003): 15-24.
• “Making the Students Do the Teaching: Problems of ‘Brit Lit Survey I.’” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 9 (Spring 2002): 39-58.
• “Dropping the Personae and Reforming the Self: The Parson’s Tale and the End of The Canterbury Tales.” Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of The Parson’s Tale. Ed. David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley.  Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000, 151-175.
• “The Middle English Lyric ‘I’, Penitential Poetics, and Medieval Selfhood.” Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies 42 (1994): 71-103.
• “Pearl, Penitence, and the Recovery of the Self.” Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 164-186.
• “Letting the Students Ask the Questions: Teaching Milton and the New Historicism.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 3 (1992): 47-63.

• “The Lives of Persons on Campus: What It Means to Consider Students as Persons and Not Individuals.” DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture 23rd Annual Fall Conference: “Dust of the Earth: On Persons.” University of Notre Dame, November 1, 2023.
• “The Student As Creature: An Approach to Student Life.”  DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture 22nd Annual Fall Conference: “And It Was Very Good.”  University of Notre Dame, November 12, 2022.
• “How to Teach Anything.”  National Conference of the Institute for Catholic Education (ICLE), St. Paul, MN, July 28, 2021.
• “Classical (and Catholic) Education and Friendship: The Good of Looking Together Upon Something Good.” deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture 20th Annual Fall Conference: “I Have Called You Friends.”  University of Notre Dame, November 8, 2019.
•  “Literature’s Power and Chaucer’s Critique.”  Keynote address, the National Conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE), Washington, DC, July 24, 2019.
• “The Scent of the Text: Entente, Emotion, and Narrative in The Summoner’s Tale.”  52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12, 2017.
• “Teaching Is An Act of the Imagination: Accessing Your Own Best Resources to Become A Better Teacher.” Roundtable presentation on Becoming Great Teachers in Graduate School at the 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11, 2017.
• “The Shrew and the Prodigal: Medieval Biblical Drama and Shakespeare’s Taming.” 23rd Annual Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses.  Dallas, Texas, April 22, 2017.
• ""'Han ye a figure thane determinat'?: Private Space, the Body, Entente, and Confession in the Friar's Tale." 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 14, 2016.
• “"Irreverent Reverence: An Approach to Western Culture through Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.”  Conference on Tradicion y Humanismo, Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico, Mexico City, August 19, 2015.
• “"Teaching Chaucer as an Introduction to Literary Study.” 14th Biennial Congress of The New Chaucer Society, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2004.  
• “The Post-Postmodern Chaucer: Confessional Word as Deed in Chaucer’s Last Tales.”  Texas Medieval Association Annual Conference, University of St. Thomas, October 3, 2002.
• “Confessional Rhetoric in Chaucer’s Last Tales: Fulfillment and Transformation.”  13th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Boulder, Colorado, July 19, 2002.
• “Medieval Religion and Postmodern Theory: Words and the Word.” 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2001.
• “Teaching Penitential Personhood.” 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2001.
• “The Problems with the Postmodern Performance of Penance.” 35th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2000.
• “The Parson’s Tale as a Door to Teaching Concepts of Medieval Christian Culture.”  35th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2000.
• “Poetic Enjambment, Order, and Violation in the Gawain-poet.”  34th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 7, 1999.
• “The Perils of Postmodern Penance: Reading Postmodern Readings of Medieval Confession.”  34th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 6, 1999.
• “Walking the Point: Hypertext, Ideology, Postmodernism, and Medieval Studies.” 32nd  International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan,  May 8, 1997.
• “Ways of Improving ‘Eng Lit at Mach 5’.” Midwest Modern Language Association 37th Annual Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 8, 1996.
• “Self and Subject: Foucault and Medieval Penitential Practice.” Midwest Modern Language Association 36th Annual Convention, St. Louis, Missouri, November 4, 1995.

• “Writing As Imitation,” “The Four Questions of a Liberal Education,” “Stasis Theory As a Guide to Teaching Argumentation.” Intensive workshops in Professional Development at the Colegio San José, Cájica, Colombia, August 1-5, 2022.  
• “Stasis Theory: Teaching Writing Using the Four Arguments.”  National Conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE), Washington, DC, July 25, 2019.
• “Using Stasis Theory in the Middle and High School Classroom.”  Keynote speaker, Rocky Mountain Teachers’ Summit, Colorado Christian University, Denver, CO, April 13, 2019.
• “An Introduction to Stasis Theory.”  Organizer, Presenter, and Instructor. The Covenant School, Dallas, TX, September 11, 2018.
• “Teaching Dispositio and Elocutio.” Organizer, Presenter, and Instructor.  A two-day workshop for The John Adams School, Sacramento, CA, August 2-3, 2018.
• “Teaching Stasis Theory and the Four Arguments.”  Organizer, Presenter, and Instructor.  A five-day workshop for the Great Hearts Schools, North Phoenix Preparatory, Phoenix, AZ,  July 23-27, 2018.
• “Style Is Not Simply Ornament: A Rhetoric of Style.”  Invited presentation at a three-day seminar on rhetoric and the teaching of writing, The Great Hearts Schools, Phoenix, AZ, April 20-22, 2016.