Jennifer Tran Smith
Biography
Jennifer Tran Smith (PhD, UCLA) is Associate Provost, Associate Professor of English, and Associate Director of the Center for Faith and Learning. Professor Tran Smith works on the intersection of language and learning in late medieval England with an emphasis on the theological writings of the reformist educator, Bishop Reginald Pecock. She most recently published The Book of Faith: A Modern English Translation (UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2020). She is currently working on a manuscript entitled, The Book of Reginald Pecock, which seeks to reconstruct Pecock's corpus (even those texts that were burnt in the aftermath of his conviction of heresy).
When not working on medieval manuscripts, Professor Tran Smith also researches in the areas of digital pedagogy and rhetoric and is developing a Christian pedagogical app called The Vineyard. Since 2021, she has served as the Media Officer for the Medieval Association of the Pacific. She is also the founding Convener for the Pepperdine Dialogue Dinners, a program intended to foster intellectual friendship among faculty through close reading and robust conversations.
Education
- PhD, Medieval English Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012
- MA, Medieval Rhetoric, Middle English, Old English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007
- BA, English, University of California, Berkeley, 2003
Topics
- Reginald Pecock
- Middle English Language, Literature, and Theology
- Rhetoric
- Digital Humanities
- Civil Discourse
Courses
- Thinking Classically (GE)
- Medieval English Literature
- Introduction to Digital Humanities