New Faculty

Kellie Robertson joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty in fall 2008, after teaching for ten years at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include medieval and early modern poetry and drama; the history of the book; legal and labor studies; and the history of the English language. She has published articles on medieval authorship, Chaucer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, postcolonial theory, and Milton.

Professor Robertson's 2006 book, The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the ‘Work’ of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500 (Palgrave Macmillan), explores the literary and political consequences of one of the most fundamental shifts in late medieval English society: the first national labor regulation following the 1348 plague. Bridging the medieval and early modern periods, the book argues that this legislation radically impacted the way that writers presented their own literary labor in the wake of new concerns about what it meant to “labor truly.” She is also the co-editor (with Michael Uebel) of The Middle Ages at Work: Practicing Labor in Late Medieval England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Her current research explores the interconnection between medieval poetry and Aristotelian natural philosophy. She received her BA in English and French from the University of Virginia and a PhD in English from Yale University. An avid hiker, she is eager to explore Madison and the nearby Wisconsin Dells.

 

Walton O. Schalick, III, MD, PhD (Medical History, Rehabilitation Medicine, History of Science, and Pediatrics) came to UW-Madison in fall 2007 after six years on the faculty at the Washington University in St Louis. His research interests are the history of medieval medicine and pharmacology, the history of children with physical disabilities in 19th- and 20th-century Europe and the US, and the practical ethics of pediatric emergency research. 

Besides being a historian, Professor Schalick is a practicing pediatrician and rehabilitation physician who has worked extensively in the areas of cerebral palsy, neural tube defects, and pediatric physical disabilities as well as general pediatrics. He is the principal investigator on several externally supported research studies and has consulted for the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization. He serves on the editorial board of journals in both the history of medicine and clinical and research medicine, has edited several book projects, and has delivered lectures on four continents and at numerous universities.

His publications on historical topics include articles forthcoming or already published in the Journal of American History, Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, OAH Magazine of History, Handbook of Clinical Neurology--3rd series: History of Neurology, and Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval & Early Modern Europe (Brill). In addition, he and Julie Anderson (Manchester) have inaugurated a monograph series on the history of disability through Manchester University Press/ Palgrave/ MacMillan.

Professor Schalick has won multiple teaching and mentoring awards in pediatrics, medicine, and history. At the University of Wisconsin, he is part of the Disability Studies Cluster Hire, designed to help create a Disability Studies program on campus. He earned his B.A. in Physics and English Literature at the Washington University, St Louis, and both his M.D. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins.