Sharon Kinoshita is a professor of medieval literature, and co-director of the UCSC Center for Mediterranean Studies at UC Santa Cruz. ^[1] In 2016, she published a new translation of Marco Polo's 'Description of the World', from the Franco-Italian 'F' version of the text. ^[2] In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academic of America. ^[3]

Kinoshita has published extensively on a range of Mediterranean medieval topics, including medieval French literature, Marie de France, ^[4] the values of feudal society, ^[5] the mid-12th century chanson de geste ' Prise d'Orange', the crusades, feminist criticism, Chrétien de Troyes, courtly love, and the writing and life of Marco Polo.

Kinoshita's 2006 book, Medieval Boundaries, was awarded an Honorable Mention as a contender for the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies by the Medieval Language Association. ^{[6] [7]} The book explores representations of cultural contact between “France” and the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. ^[8]

In 2021, Kinoshita delivered the Medieval Academy of America plenary at the International Congress on Medieval Studies Kalamazoo virtual conference, on “Marco Polo and the Diversity of the Global Middle Ages”. ^[9]

• Translator, Marco Polo, The Description of the World. Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 2016.
• Co-editor, with Peregrine Horden, A Companion to Mediterranean History. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
• Co-author, with Peggy McCracken, Marie de France: A Critical Companion. Gallica. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2012.
• Author of Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
• Author of “Crusades and Identity.” Cambridge History of French Literature. Ed. William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. pp. 93–101
• Author of “Cherchez La Femme: Feminist Criticism and Marie De France’s ‘Lai De Lanval.’” Romance Notes, vol. 34, no. 3, 1994, p. 263.