Thesis Title: ‘Take this Cup', Heroic Oaths and Eucharistic Ritual: The Presentation of Drinking Vessels in Medieval Literature.
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
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 do belief and faith manifest in literature (even 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 eminent and extraordinary scholar.
