James M. Beall Professor of French and Humanities
Nichols is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, an Honorary Senior Fellow of the School of Criticism and Theory (which he directed from 1996-2001). He holds an honorary Docteur ès Lettres (University of Geneva), is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres (France), and received The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Prize in 2008, 2015, and 2023. A Yale University Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, he has written or edited some 28 books, primarily regarding the Middle Ages, including Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography, which received the James Russell Lowell Prize for an outstanding book from the Modern Language Association. Nichols served as Interim Dean of the Johns Hopkins Libraries in 1994-95. He chaired the French Department, Romance Languages, and German and Romance Languages from 1996-2010. He co-directs JHU’s Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts and co-founded the journal Digital Philology, (Project Muse, JHU Press).
Current Interests: Teaching students to read archival handwritten documents; leading adult reading groups; interpreting medieval history and literature for an informed public.