The Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference Committee is pleased to announce the program for their twenty-first annual conference, held at the Maison Française d’Oxford on 24-25 April 2025, on the theme ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’. Interested in attending? Register for in-person or online attendance on the conference website.
THURSDAY, APRIL 24
9:00-9:25 Registration (in-person)
9:25-9:30 Opening remarks
9:30-11:30 Session 1: Saints and Staging
- Isadora Martins Fontoura de Carvalho, ‘Sacred water and martyrdom: Towards an interdisciplinary approach on the celebration of Saint Marina in the village of Augas Santas’
- Anna MacDonald, ‘From Ritual Murder to Ritual Economy: Constructing the Cult of William of Norwich’
- Clare Whitton, ‘Garlanded priests, a pig, and the blood of San Gennaro: The Festa dell’Inghirlandati in Medieval Naples’
- Simone Kügeler-Race, ‘Recording Ritual, Representation and Performance: The Passion Play in the Manuscript Matrix of Codex Donaueschingen 137’
11:30-11:45 Break with refreshments
11:45-13:15 Session 2: Eating and Abstinence
- Isabel Hedgecock, ‘Omne temporus ieiunii constitutum est’: a literary analysis of Wulfstan of York’s De ieiunio quattuor temporum‘
- Caitlin Kelly, ‘Hungry Eyes: The Art of (Not) Eating in Late Medieval English Literature’
- Arsany Paul, ‘Domestic Eucharistic Rituals: Partaking of the Eucharist in Private Spaces among the Copts through the Middle Ages’
13:15-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:00 Session 3: Relics, Textiles, Amulets
- Rachel Maxey, ‘Becoming “Heavenly-Minded”: The Use of Amulets for Angel Invocation in the Middle Ages’
- Janine Weingärtner, ‘The Seamless Robe of Christ and the Epic Poem of Orendel: Rituals of Relic Veneration and Narrative Agency’
- Tracey Davison, ‘Skeuomorphic Textiles as Devotional Objects in the Early Churches of Rome’
16:00-16:15 Break with refreshments
16:15-17:15 Keynote Address 1: Dr Helen Gittos, ‘Christianity before Conversion’
18:30 Conference Dinner (optional)
FRIDAY, APRIL 25
9:30-11:30 Session 4: Death and Grief
- Divya Sharma, ‘Ritualizing Laments and Lamenting Rituals in Medieval Tamilaham’
- Isla Defty, ‘Going mad as a grief ritual in Sir Orfeo and Partonope of Blois: The highly structured nature of madness in Middle English romances’
- Emilie Badoux, ‘Teaching Funeral Rites in the Auchinleck Life of Adam and Eve: A Family Matter’
- Caitriona Dowden, ‘Processions in Paradise: Imaginary rituals in medieval visions of the afterlife’
11:30-11:45 Break with refreshments
11:45-13:15 Session 5: The Body
- Charlotte Stobart, ‘Making and Unmaking Disabled Bodies: Rituals and Disability in Viking Age Scandinavia’
- Celeste van Gent, ‘Rituals of Healing: Injury and the medical practice of later medieval soldiers’
- Willa Stonecipher, ‘Genuflection in Medieval England: Ritual and Osteoarchaeological Interpretation in Monastic Populations’
13:15-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:00 Session 6: Rites of Passage
- Zachary Young, ‘The Rite of Degradation as a Locus of Theological Elaboration’
- Bastien Paulin Verdier, ‘Essay of Anthropological History: Rituals and Ceremonies Attached to sénéchaux and sergents féodés offices in Britanny (13th to 15th centuries)’
- Kaiyue Zhang, ‘The Crossroad for Liberty: The four-road Ritual and the Manumission Ceremony in Lombard Italy’
16:00-16:15 Break with refreshments
16:15-17:15 Keynote Address 2: Professor Aleks Pluskowski, ‘Reaching for the Otherworld: Ritual and Religious Practice After the Baltic Crusades’
17:15 OMGC 2026 Theme Selection + Closing Remarks
SATURDAY, APRIL 26
12:00-17:00 Oxford Medieval Mystery Cycle (St Edmund Hall)