Though English supporters of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe (d.1384)—known as “Lollards”—had been drawn from academic and noble/gentry circles during the later-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries, persecution, equation of heresy with sedition, and the failure of Sir John Oldcastle’s Rebellion (1414) ensured overt abandonment of Lollard i…[Read more]

This paper examines a strand in British television historical drama that presents what I term a “Gothicised” version of history. This actively engages with historical trauma as returning to confront its originating society, as the classic Gothic text represents the returning or ongoing effects of a traumatic past in the narrative present. In Peaky…[Read more]

This paper considers the 2018 television adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock as an example of Gothicised historical television drama, which uses the Gothic mode to present a past in a way that challenges our expectations of what prestige historical drama should be like, and to emphasise historical traumas and the way that they are still relevant…[Read more]

Syllabus for English 2Z03: Nature, Literature, Culture: An Introduction to the Environmental Humanities at McMaster University in the 2022 winter semester. This course used a form of contract grading, and this document includes the Contract Grading FAQ provided to students ahead of/during the course.

The proliferation of work by autistic writers continues apace, defying a long and multidisciplinary tradition of constructing autistic people as lacking the capacity for narration. To study neurodivergent literature, then, is to witness the refusal of these exclusionary narrative conventions, and to register the ideological presuppositions that…[Read more]

Keynote paper.
This paper examines the connections between the winter season and Gothic historical television dramas. It defines Gothic historical television dramas as dramas with a historical setting that take on a Gothic aesthetic and emphasise themes of trauma which are active in the past and continue to be active in the present. It also…[Read more]

This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). It offers a perspective into the historical imaginary of the late-medieval Portuguese aristocracy; an imaginary that underlay the argumentation of members of this social class in defence of their…[Read more]

This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). It offers a perspective into the historical imaginary of the late-medieval Portuguese aristocracy; an imaginary that underlay the argumentation of members of this social class in defence of their…[Read more]

Viking invasions and settlements left substantial legacies in late Anglo-Saxon England, attested in legal texts as a division between areas under Dena lage and those under Ængla lage. But how legal practice in Scandinavian-settled England functioned and differed from Anglo-Saxon law remains unclear. III Æthelred, the ‘Wantage Code’, provides criti…[Read more]

Der Beitrag untersucht das Verhältnis des Bildprogramms zur Weltchronik des Rudolf von Ems zu anderen Bildprogrammen von volkssprachlichen Weltchroniken.
Es gibt keinen für Rudolf von Ems typischen Illustrationsmodus. Weder Rudolf noch irgendeine andere Weltchronik hat eine derart individuell ausgeprägte und von der biblischen Grundlage sich ab…[Read more]

Die Quellensammlung zum Waldrapp (Geronticus eremita – Northern Bald Ibis) versammelt Knochenfunde (ab dem Miozän), Bildquellen aus dem Mittleren Osten, dem Alten Ägypten, der Antike, dem Mittelalter und bis ins 17. Jahrhundert und Textquellen, die bis in die Antike zurückreichen und einen eindeutigen Höhepunkt im 16. Jahrhundert (Conrad Ges…[Read more]

Das Stadtbuch der niederösterreichischen Stadt Waidhofen an der Thaya aus der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts beginnt mit einer bemerkenswerten Initiale. Diese kombiniert Motive, die aus Notarssigneten stammen mit einem Vogel, der seit 1971 mit dem Waldrapp (Geronticus eremita) identifiziert wurde.

The article focuses on one of the most famous accounts of the events of 1204: the De Signis by Niketas Choniates. It demonstrates how Choniates constructed a (semi)fictional account of the assaults against the Byzantine culture and identity through a constellation of symbols and passages drawn from the Greek Classics. The article comprises three…[Read more]