John Hirsh is professor of English. He is an expert in Chaucer and Middle English literature; medieval spirituality; American literature of the 19th and early 20th century, especially realism; medieval culture; and the teaching of reading, particularly to "at risk" K-6 children.

Selected publications Hirsh has written are: (all are book titles): The Boundaries of Faith: the Development and Transmission of Late Medieval Spirituality (1996); Sursum Corda: Teaching Urban Youth to Read (1991); The Revelations of Margery Kempe: Paramystical Practices in Late Medieval England (1989); Hope Emily Allen: Medieval Scholarship and Feminism (1988); Barlam and Josaphat: A Medieval Life of Buddha (1986) Western Manuscripts of the Twelfth through the Sixteenth Centuries in Lehigh University Libraries: A Guide to the Exhibition (1970).

Hirsh has won the following honors, grants and awards: Keeley Visiting Fellow, Wadham College, Oxford; Visiting Fellowship, Pembroke College, Oxford; American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship; and Hood Fellow, Lehigh University.

He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. from Lehigh University and B.A. from Boston College.