Staff profile

My research looks at gendered affective experiences of love and lovesickness in medieval French and English chivalric romance in light of Wace's claim that “pure amistié e pur amies / Funt chevaliers chevaleries” (‘it is for love and their beloved that knights do knightly deeds). I am keen to trace the transmission of medical scholarship from the east to the west to explore how philosophy and science impacted the way in which medieval thinkers viewed sickness in the mind and body, and how romance writers contributed to a so-called 12th century Renaissance with regards to their interest in humanism.

I am particularly interested in the songs of the troubadours, the works of Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, Chaucer, and Christine de Pisan, as well as their classical influences. Key critical texts in my thesis include those that attempt to define love, ranging from the dialogues of Plato, the writings of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, to modern psychological studies on how attraction between members of the opposite sex works.

I am further intrigued by how presentations of love differ across cultures, with a portion of my work involving a comparative study of Welsh and Old Norse translations of French romances.

I work in the department as a Teaching Assistant on the 'Epic and the Literature of Legend' module and as a Social Media Intern. I am a Postgraduate Fellow in the Institute for Medical Humanities and an active member of the Medieval and Early Modern Students Association, having organised the 18th annual MEMSA Conference of July 2024 on the theme of 'Fear and Loathing in the Medieval and Early Modern World.' Other extracurriculars include serving on the Executive Committee for my Middle Common Room (Secretary 2022-23, Academic Officer 2023-24, and Vice President 2024-25) and working at Durham Cathedral.

Education

PhD English Literature, Durham University, 2023-ongoing

Thesis: 'Gendered Affective Experiences of Lovesickness in Medieval Romance,' supervised by Professor Corinne Saunders and Dr Michael Huxtable

MA Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies, Durham University, 2022-2023 

Dissertation: 'To what extent does the human relationship to animals in terms of symbolism, allegory, and/or transformation differ in medieval romance and epic when gender is taken into account?', supervised by Dr Venetia Bridges

MA English Literature and Classics, University of Edinburgh, 2018-2022 

Dissertation: 'The Ulysses of the Internet: Authorship and lack thereof in the Digital Age', supervised by Dr Honor Rieley

Talks and Papers

'"Sexuality...the worldly expression of the sacred": Lyrics of Lovesickness in Southern France', Hatfield MCR Postgraduate Freshers' Research Roulette, Durham University, October 2024.

'Crusading Women: Catharism and Catechism in Troubadour Lyric of the 13th Century', Leeds International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, July 2024.

'Political Malory: The Romance Hero as a 'Man Like Us' Made Vehicle for the Best Ideals of the Author's Age', Hatfield-Castle MCR Research Roulette (part of Durham Global Week), Durham University, March 2023.

'Terentian Didacticism in Medieval Germany: The Propriety and Innovation of Gandersheim's Nuns', Medieval and Early Modern Students Association Conference, Durham University, July 2023.

• mental health in literature
• history of ideas
• literary masculinities
• manuscript studies
• Latin poetry
• Welsh literature
• Old Norse
• Old French