Ayesha Mahmood

Ayesha Mahmood studied the BA in Modern Languages and Cultures with a Year Abroad, specialising in French and Italian and graduating in 2019.

What was your favourite module and why?

I loved all the modules but my favourite by far was Sex, Gender and Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It introduced me to texts I would never have come across otherwise, in languages from Occitan to middle French, and led me to explore questions on nationalism and identity that remain pertinent today. When reading Marco Polo’s Description du monde, for instance, it struck me how many similarities could be drawn between the thirteenth-century travelogue and a current-day issue of National Geographic. This module mapped the development of not only the French language, but also of the wider French political and national identity - as well as the challenges this identity had to confront upon contact with the ‘Orient’. Meanwhile, the study of texts such as Le Chevalier de la Charette and the Heptaméron provided fascinating insights into medieval and Renaissance viewpoints on gender, vice, virtue and romance.

What did you do after leaving Durham?

At Durham, I found a passion for the Middle Ages, completing a dissertation on the literary representation of Saracens in crusade texts and how such representations can be compared with current representations of Muslims in the media. This led me to apply for a masters in Comparative European Literatures at the University of Cambridge, where I explored such subjects in greater detail. After graduating from Cambridge, I secured a training contract with an international law-firm and am currently completing the post-graduate legal diploma prior to starting my training in the city.

What is your favourite memory of Durham?

A stage of my time at Durham that I particularly loved was the beginning of fourth year - when everyone had returned from their years abroad and we were preparing to launch ourselves into our final undergraduate year. It was so fun to catch up with friends after a year, to hear what everyone had been up to abroad and to exchange experiences. The best part was seeing first-hand how much everyone’s languages skills levelled up - hearing newfound confidence using idioms you wouldn’t find in a textbook, for instance, or feeling your own grasp of the language becoming more fluent than it had been in that same lecture hall last year. That time also marked the beginning of self-directed study, where you could pick your own dissertation topic, ask your own questions, do your own research and fully explore your interests. That was definitely my favourite time.

Ayesha’s professional profile is on LinkedIn