Pamela Kask

Supervisor: Professor Marion Turner

Research Interests: Women's Studies, Medieval Legal Studies, Sleep and Dream Theories, Trauma Studies, Medical Humanities, Psychoanalytical Approaches to Medieval Literatures.

Thesis Title: Consenting to Violence: The Creation of Trauma in the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

My research interests focus on the broader idea of trauma as a transhistorical state of mental being; one that has been experienced, even if differently, by individuals throughout history. This widens the application of trauma in a medieval literary context and considers both the experience of trauma for medieval individuals and the experience of reading and writing trauma in medieval texts. My thesis analyses the relationship between consent, violence and trauma in the Chaucerian canon, aiming to illuminate some of the ways that medieval people may have experienced and conceptualized trauma. I map these conceptualizations utilizing various medieval theoretical frameworks including philosophical, theological, political, literary and legal and I frame this discussion through the modern theoretical lens of trauma theory.