Welcome to Week 4: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.
OMS are working towards producing an ‘Impact Booklet’, emphasising all of the wonderful things that go on throughout the year. At the moment we are searching for publications – if you have published a relevant monograph/ edited volume/ edition during the past year, please drop an email to this address with a short blurb. Also: Applications to be the next Social Media Officer still welcome; contact Henrike Lähnemann for an informal discussion of the role!
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Julia Smith (All Souls) and Ana Dias (Brasenose) will be speaking on ‘Surviving in the archives: how to make sense of early medieval relic labels’.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. (NB change of speaker). Professor Christophe Grellard (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris)) will be speaking on ‘St. Erkenwald – Orthodoxy on the Edge?’.
- The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
- Medieval Church and Culture – tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Kevin Carlson (St Peter’s) will be speaking on ‘Reorienting Towards Life: a queer, medieval phenomenology of death in an anonymous 12thc Latin poem’, and Leslie Pencheng (St Catz) will be speaking on ‘Transforming the Ineffable: metaphors in Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing’.
Wednesday
- The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Patrick Leuenberger will be speaking on Alexander’s horse Boucephalus. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
- The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 4: Planetary motions and horoscope.
- Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 2pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Ved Prahba Shama (Independent Researcher) will be speaking on ‘Moving Beyond Knowledge in a Gendered Space’. See their TORCH website to book.
- Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
- Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Michael Callen (London School of Economics) will be speaking on ‘Building State Capacity in Fragile States’.
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
- The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Elizabeth Kelly (Independent researcher, London) will be speaking on ‘Zoomorphic incense burners of medieval Khurasan’.
Friday
- Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group Reading Group: Connoisseurship – 5pm online. Write to oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com for more information.
Opportunities (new additions in bold)
- The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
- Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
- Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
- National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
- CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
- CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
- A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
- Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
- Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
- Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
- The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.