Eric Jager

Eric Jager is a literary critic and a specialist in medieval literature. He is a professor in the department of English at University of California, Los Angeles, received his B.A. from Calvin College in 1979, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1987.

Professor Jager came to UCLA from Columbia University in 1996 and teaches medieval literature, including courses on Beowulf, Chaucer, the epic, and the romance. His other interests include classics, Saint Augustine, the history of the book, and literary theory. His work has appeared in Speculum, Medium Aevum, and Studies in Philology, as well as in various edited collections, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post legal blog, and The Daily Beast. He has given invited talks at many universities, including Princeton, Duke, Chicago, Michigan, British Columbia, Caen, Orléans, and Lille, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Library in Paris. His awards include a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Weiss/Brown Award from The Newberry Library.

His book, The Last Duel, has sold in nine languages worldwide, was featured on NPR, Radio France, and BBC radio’s “Book of the Week,” was adapted for a BBC TV documentary and shortlisted by the Crime Writers’ Association (U.K.) for the Nonfiction “Gold Dagger.” His latest book, Blood Royal, recounts a 1407 conspiracy to assassinate a member of the French royal family and how the crime was solved by one of history’s first detectives, who detailed his investigation on a thirty-foot parchment scroll.