Professor Arthur Bahr has been named head of the MIT Literature Section, effective July 1. “Arthur is an exceptional scholar and a proven leader. I am confident that he will guide the unit with judgment, insight, and a deep commitment to its continued success,” says Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “I very much look forward to having him join the school’s leadership team.” Bahr’s work blends formalist and materialist approaches to find literary resonance in the physical particularities of medieval manuscripts. He joined the MIT faculty in 2007 and helped lead the Ancient and Medieval Studies program in 2009-18 and 2022-23, working with colleagues from across the Institute to strengthen and expand the program. He has also been curriculum chair and undergraduate officer of the Literature Section.

“Lit@MIT has som… Bahr is the author of “Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript: Speculation, Shapes, Delight” (University of Chicago Press, 2025); “Fragments and Assemblages: Forming Compilations of Medieval London” (University of Chicago Press, 2013); and co-editor of “Medieval English Manuscripts: Form, Aesthetics, and the Literary Text,” a special volume of The Chaucer Review (47.4, April 2013). His essays have appeared in ELH, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Studies in Philology, and The Chaucer Review, among others. Bahr has been named a SHASS Faculty Fellow for the spring 2027 semester. His next project combines his interest in manuscripts with his training as a figure skating judge to explore analogies between sheets of parchment and sheets of ice, as sites of performance, inscription, and erasure. Bahr was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow in 2015. He received the James A.