Explorer of Caves and Medieval Lit Joins English Department

By Caitlin Schwab

If Jana Mathews isn’t reading or talking about literature she is probably rappelling in a cave or jumping out of an airplane.

Mathews is a visiting professor in the English department this semester where she will be teaching Introduction to Literature and upper level English classes including American Literature before the Civil War.

English Literature is her passion and since the age of ten she knew she wanted to become a college professor. She said, “I am fortunate that I get to combine my love of reading and discussing literature as my job.”

But Mathews doesn’t spend her breaks in dusty archives reading Chaucer. She prefers “adventure travel”. She has been to Egypt, New Zealand, Turkey, Europe, and Central America. These were not museum trips either. In her travels she skydives, repels down the walls of caves, hikes up volcanoes and whitewater rafts.

Mathews was born and raised in Los Angela’s, California. She moved to Provo, Utah to attend Brigham Young University on a scholarship to study English literature. She received her master’s degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and earned her doctorate from Duke University.

Mathews moved to Pennsylvania to be a visiting lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. She also taught at Duke. Some of the courses she taught include Violence in Medieval Law and Literature, The Age of Chaucer, and British Literature 1350-1750.

She has been a guest lecturer at the University of Georgia, Rollins College, and the University of Kansas. She has participated in more than a dozen English literature conferences. Mathews was also awarded the Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Jacob K. Javits awards.

Mathews is married and has four children: a daughter, six, twin boys, five, and a one-year-old son. She and her husband are rabid college basketball fans. The Duke Blue Devils are their favorite team.

Mathews described her students as “energetic, enthusiastic, polite, and eager to learn.”

“I’m excited to be teaching at Delaware Valley College,” she said.