Dr. Bard Swallow is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. Their research explores multilingual literature and poetic form, especially in the literary cultures of medieval England, with particular interests in Latin, French, and English literary traditions as well as manuscript studies.

At UBC, Swallow is working with Siân Echard on With Quaint Words: Multilingual Wordplay in John Gower’s Latin Works. The project examines the poetry of John Gower, a fourteenth-century poet who wrote extensively in English, French, and Latin. Because literary scholarship is often organized around individual languages and national traditions, multilingual works can be difficult to study as integrated bodies of writing. With Quaint Words explores connections across Gower’s works by focusing on wordplay, sound, and other poetic techniques that operate across linguistic boundaries. By examining how Gower’s use of multiple languages shaped his poetic practice, the project seeks to develop approaches to literary study that are as multilingual as the texts themselves.

Swallow holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto, an MA in Medieval Literatures and Languages from the University of York, and a BA in Computer Science from Carleton College. Across their research, they are interested in how writers work within formal systems, whether languages, poetic forms, or material environments like manuscripts and even digital media, and how the constraints and possibilities of those systems shape literary creativity.

“Along the Same Lines: Prosodic Adaptation in Mixed-Language Verse.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 125, no. 4, Oct. 2026, pp. 399–428. (forthcoming)

“High Fantasy RPGs and the Materiality of the Medieval Book.” Games and Culture, vol. 20, no. 5, July 2025, pp. 657–68.

“Fifteenth-Century Middle English and Latin Additions to a New Manuscript of Mandeville’s Travels.” Journal of the Early Book Society, vol. 27, 2024, pp. 145–53.

“Common Authorship and the ‘Anonymous of Calais’: Reassessing an Anglo-Latin Political Poem from the Fourteenth Century.” The Journal of Medieval Latin, vol. 33, 2023, pp. 89–118.

Selected awards

• 2026-28 SSHRC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award
• 2026 Leonard Boyle Dissertation Prize for Medieval Studies, Canadian Society of Medievalists/Société canadienne des médiévistes
• 2024-25 Doctoral Fellowship, Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College, University of Toronto
• 2023 Schallek Award, Medieval Academy of America and Richard III Society