Shelley M. Williams
DPhil Research Student
Jesus College
Thesis title: ‘Chaucer Pictures the Cosmos: Materiality, Science, and Astral Poetics.'
Recent publications include:
- Forthcoming: 'Janus at the Portal: Time and Magic in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Franklin’s Tale.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer vol 47 (2025).
- 'Black Agnes.' Women's History of Scotland blogpost.
- ‘The Wife of Bath's Prologue.’ The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages (Springer Meteor, 2024).
- "Capturing Sound: The Art of William de Brailes in New College MS 322." New College Notes 17/2 (2022): 1-18.
- "The Zodiac on Church Portals: Astrology and the Medieval Cosmos." Peregrinations, Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture 7/3 (2021): 59-115.
I am a medievalist with an interest in the history, literature, art, and culture of Europe c. 1100-1400 CE. I am particularly interested in Geoffrey Chaucer and Middle English poetry; Scotland in the fourteenth century, specifically Agnes Randolph of Dunbar; women in the Middle Ages; the history of science and astronomy, natural history and philosophy; astrology and star lore; manuscript illuminations; secular and sacred architecture; and art history.
