Thesis Title: ‘Take this Cup': The Presentation of Drinking Vessels in Old and Middle English Poetry
Supervisors: Professor Laura Ashe, Professor Francis Leneghan
Research Interests: Old English poetry, Middle English poetry, ritual and religious imagination, blood, feasting, culinary history, domesticity, textiles and materials in literature, Medieval North England; Eucharist and sacrament; material objects;
Doctoral Research: My thesis interrogates the presentation of cups in early and middle English poetry, examining them as sites of ritual, relationship, and judgement. Drawing together literature, archaeology, theology and the history of food I ask: How are the social meanings received by material objects transferred into literature? How does faith and devotion manifest in literature (especially in texts which are not explicitly religious)? And, how do medieval authors use domestic experiences to negotiate and describe complexities of life?
Coming from West Yorkshire and New Zealand, I am also passionate about supporting young scholars and making research accessible and interactive to wider audiences, particularly in creative scholarship as a method of doing so. You can read my experimental translation of the Old English Seafarer into Modern English and te reo Māori here:
'Waiata-tangi o te moana', https://isismagazine.org.uk/2022/01/waiata-tangi-o-te-moana-the-seafarer/
I am funded by the Anne Hudson Scholarship, it is a wonderful privilege to be supported by the legacy of such an extraordinary scholar.
Conferences:
'Ic can þonne ‘dom’: Knowledge, Wordplay and Humour in the Old English Apollonius, The Old English Translation of the "Historia Apollonii regis Tyri", Università degli Studi di Bergamo, 13–14 April 2026
Wassail, Wrotherhail: Death and Drinking Vessels in Layamon’s Brut, Leeds International Medieval Congress 2026, 6-9 July 2026
