Oxford Medieval Studies Newsletter Week 3 Trinity Term 2020

11 May 2020
Karl Kinsella
oms red

Dear Medievalists,

Time seems to have lost all meaning, but I think this is week 3. So far, the online seminars have been a real success in letting people get their work out there and some great discussions taking place via video or Teams chat boxes. This week will be no different I’m sure.

Seminars

  • Today (11th)  at 4pm, Marilina Cesario will be discussing ‘Natural Science in the Peterborough Chronicle’ at the Oxford Old English Work-in-Progress Group. This is held on the OMS Teams in their own channel, so you can join them there. It begins at 4pm.
  • Then at 5pm today, The Medieval History Seminar continues from last week’s success, and Simon Yarrow will give a talk on ‘”Some Problems of the Peace’: Angelic Governance in Angevin England’. The Seminar has its own Teams , through which you can access Simon’s paper here. To join the seminar click here, then click ‘Accept’ and then ‘Add to Calendar’. Please read the paper before joining the discussion and the convenors would like to encourage people to use the chat function to engage silently with the conversation. It’s a little like whispering in class only less annoying and to be encouraged.
  • Weeks 4, 5, and 6 of the Seminar will be given over to a Graduate colloquium. And so, the Seminar invites proposals from graduate students for online research panels in Weeks 5 and 6. The research panels, organised around a unifying theme, will involve 2-3 short papers (10 – 12 mins max.) followed by a moderated question period. In order to generate a good discussion, abstracts for each paper will be circulated to attendees in advance. Those interested should send short abstracts (200 words max.) either individually or in groups to Sumner Braund, sumner.braund@history.ox.ac.uk, by 12 May 2020.
  • On Tuesday (12th) at 5pm, the Early Slavonic Webinar continues with Sean Griffin discussing ‘Medieval Memory Wars in Post-Socialist Russia and Ukraine’. The group meets via Zoom and you can link up with them by clicking here.
  • On Wednesday (13th), the Graduate Seminar in Medieval German continues at 11.15am when they will be reading Meister Eckhart’s sermons in the topic of Freedom. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the seminar please get in touch with henrike.laehnemann@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
  • At 4pm on Wednesday, The Middle English Work in Progress Seminar will be joined by Hannah Lucas and Raphaela Rohrhofer who will be discussing their work on Julian of Norwich. The group meets via OMS Teams and you can listen into the seminar by clicking here.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Archaeology and Art Seminar will host Pamela Armstrong who will be talking about ‘The Transmission of Art: Travelling Saints and Monastic Networks’ at 5pm on Wednesday. You can join their Teams here.

Reading Groups

  • The Old Norse Reading Group meets today on OMS Teams at 5.30pm. This being an odd week it will act as a Graduate Forum. Contact william.brockbank@jesus.ox.ac.uk for more information. The channel can be found here.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets again on Tuesday at 3.30pm to consider the theme of Travel. This week they will be reading Boccaccio, De Canaria and Jean de Bethencourt, ‘The Canarian’. If you’re interested email oxfordmedievalbookclub@gmail.com and join them on OMS Teams here.
  • The Old English Reading Group, meeting odd weeks this term, will be continuing their reading of Ælfric’s Homilies on Thursday at 5.30pm. If you’d like to join them, get in touch with tom.revell@balliol.ox.ac.uk and join them on the OMS Teams here.
  • On Friday, the Anglo-Norman Reading Group will further their reading of Marie de France’s Fables. If you would like to join them, send an email to andrew.lloyd@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk

Also, don’t forget that we have more and more blogs coming up and are always happy to receive ideas for new ones.

The Medieval Booklet is a rather dynamic document at the moment, and will be updated, as will the calendar on TORCH, when we receive word about events. You can access both here.