Current Research Projects
Read about our current projects here.
The Medieval Prehistory of Celebrity
Prof. Irina Dumitrescu
If you thought the cult of the celebrity was a modern phenomenom, think again! One of Prof. Irina Dumitrescu's current projects explores the medieval prehistory of celebrity. Watch this space for the monograph.
In the meantime, listen to Prof. Dumitrescu chat about it for CBC Radio here.
Medieval Literature and Perfectionism.
Prof. Irina Dumitrescu
This project explores a topic that many people struggle with today - perfectionism. Dumitrescu looks to medieval literature to help her understand the underlying, and often very personal, motivators that drive us be perfect.
Listen to her chat about the topic on CBC Radio here.
Functionality and Identity in the South English Legendary, ca. 1260-1500
Dr Niamh Kehoe
This project explores the intersection of functionality and identity in the surviving corpus of manuscripts containing the collection of texts known today as the South English Legendary. A rich and varied anthology, the SEL's potential for adaptation is evinced by its wide circulation in the south-west of England from ca. 1260-1500. To navigate this wealth of material, this project balances close readings of select manuscripts as case studies, informed by an overview of the compilation of the extant manuscripts (around sixty). Despite the evident popularity of the South English Legendary tradition, it remains critically understudied – particularly in terms of its intra-manuscript textual relationships, and how its manuscript witnesses may have served communities. This project proposes the first large-scale examination of evidence for the intersection of functionality and identity within the tradition: rather than attempting to reconstruct the identity of the writer(s), original audience(s), or the original aim of these texts, this project instead seeks to examine manuscript dispersal and content; I aim to uncover what manuscript compilations can reveal regarding the identities and needs of the communities that used them.
