Unlocking the Exeter Book Conference
The Exeter Book or Exeter Anthology is a cornerstone of Old English poetry. From saints’ lives to wisdom poetry, lyrics and laments to riddles and prayers, this fascinating juxtaposition of genres, styles and themes invites constant re-reading and re-evaluation. The conference will bring together established scholars and new voices to bring fresh insights to this rich and enigmatic manuscript.
Dates: 16 - 17 April 2025
Venue: Faculty of English, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UL.
Registration is open until 26 March 2025. REGISTER NOW >>
Day One: 16 April 2025
09.15: Welcome
09.30–11.00: Session 1: Monastic Poetics
- Brian O’Camb (Indiana University Northwest), ‘The Old English Rhyming Poem, Widsith, and the Regius Psalter (London, BL, MS. Royal 2.B.V)’
- Eleni Ponirakis (University of Nottingham), ‘“When you walk through fire, you shall not burn, and the flames shall not set you afire”: A New Reading of the Exeter Book poem, Azarias’
- Giovanni Nichetti (University of Bergamo), ‘At the Crossroads: Textual and Cultural Stratification in Precepts’
11.00–11.30: Tea and cake break
11.30–13.00: Session 2: Manuscripts and Readers
- Jonathan Wilcox (University of Iowa), ‘Scribal Craft in the Exeter Book and the Twice-Scripted Riddle 30’
- Tom Birkett (University College Cork), ‘Riddle Solvers and Reformists: Marginalia and the Readers of the Exeter Book’
- Thomas A. Bredehoft (Chancery Hill Books), ‘Limp-Bound Booklets of Old English Poetry and the Exeter Book’
13.00–14.00: Lunch break
14.00–15.30: Session 3: Genre
- Mercedes Salvador-Bello (Universidad de Sevilla), ‘The Role of the Physiologus in the Exeter Book’
- Megan Cavell (University of Birmingham) and Jennifer Neville (Royal Holloway, University of London), ‘Riddling Despair in Lone Dweller (Riddle 5)’
- Richard North (UCL), ‘Elegies as Riddles in the Exeter Book’
15.30–15.45: Break
15.45–17.15: Session 4: Origins and Readership
- M. J. Toswell (University of Western Ontario), ‘The Exeter Book and the Book of Psalms’
- Alice Jorgensen (Trinity College Dublin), ‘The Exeter Book: Evidence for an “Emotional Community”’
- Dan Anlezark (University of Sydney), ‘The Fitt Divisions in the Christ poems and the Origins of the Exeter Anthology’
17.15–17.30: Break
17.30: Keynote: Elizabeth Tyler (University of York), ‘The Exeter Book: The Paradox of Old English between the Local and the Universal’
18.30: Drinks reception
20.00: Conference Dinner
Day Two: 17 April
09.30–11.00: Session 5: Sequencing and Anthologising
- Rafał Borysławski (University of Silesia), ‘Is an Onion Like the Bible? Unlocking Possible Catenations of the Exeter Book Riddles’
- Ian Shiels (Leeds), ‘Vetustate consumptus et nullius valoris: The Exeter Book Anthologist and the Lost Poetry of Theoderic’
- Paul Cavill (University of Nottingham), ‘Piety and Poetry: three biblical poems in the Exeter Book, Alms-Giving, Pharaoh, and Lord’s Prayer I’
11.00–11.30: Tea and cake break
11.30–13.00: Session 6: Landscapes and Ecology
- Ann Pascoe-van Zyl (TCD), ‘Landscape and the Mind in the Old English Elegies: What Does Place-Name Evidence Reveal?
- James Paz (University of Manchester), ‘Storm-Thoughts and Ice-Songs: A Creative-Critical Response to Exeter Book Eco-Poetry’
- Emma Hitchcock (Columbia University), ‘The Ocean, the Bird, and the Land: Subjectivity and Dispossession in the Exeter Lyrics’
13.00–14.00: Lunch break
14.00–15.30: Session 7: Biblical poetry
- Jasmine Jones (University of Oxford), ‘Exegesis of the Exeter Book: The Descent into Hell as Vernacular Theology’
- Gabrielle Cocco (University of Bergamo), ‘The Fall of Angels in Resignation A 49b–56: A pithy poetic theological insert on angelology’
- Francisco J. Rozano-García (Universidad de Leon), ‘From the Fire Unscathed: The Place of Azarias in the Old English Poetic Corpus’
15.30–16.00: Break
16.00–17.30: Session 8: The Art and Craft of Poetry
- John D. Niles (University of Wisconsin-Madison), ‘Craft Poetry, Exeter Style’
- Maryann Pierse (University of Aberdeen), ‘Divinely Inspired Poets in the Exeter Book and Beyond’
- Grace O’Duffy (University of Oxford), ‘I bind us together’: The Husband’s enchanted Message and Old Norse manrúnar
17.30: Close
Organisers:
Rachel Burns: Rachel.burns@ell.ox.ac.uk
Francis Leneghan: Francis.leneghan@ell.ox.ac.uk
