He completed his BA in Italian and Medieval Studies at the University of Oregon. He went on take his M.Phil in Medieval Studies and Ph.D. in Italian Language and Literature at Yale University in 2003.
From 2003 to 2016, he was Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Oklahoma, where he created a new B.A. program in Italian, developed a new study center for OU in Arezzo Italy, and managed a public/private partnership between OU/ENEL Green Power/Capitoline Museums of Rome.
His research focuses on Giovanni Boccaccio and his complicated relationships with other key Trecento Italian authors: Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, and Zanobi da Strada. His publications include numerous articles and review articles in journals such as MLN, Dante Studies, Studi Sul Boccaccio, Renaissance Quarterly, and Speculum. His monograph Building a Monument to Dante: Boccaccio as Dantista (UToronto Press, 2011) underscored Boccaccio’s strong influence in the development of Dante Studies. In 2018, Harvard University Press will publish his translation (with Sam Huskey) of Boccaccio’s Shorter Latin Works in the I Tatti Renaissance Library series, which bring many of Boccaccio’s text into English for the first time ever. He is editing a volume for the Perspectives on the Decameron series (Day V). Currently, he is investigating the little-known figure of Zanobi da Strada and his position as the “fourth crown” of the Italian Trecento.
Contact: houston@gonzaga.edu