Welcome to week 2. Alongside the usual weekly roster of reading groups and opportunities, this weeks sees a number of exciting one-off events: ‘Black Lives in the Archives’ (Thur), Prof Treharne on ‘The Look of the Medieval Book’ (Fri), and Dr Griffith in the annual O’ Donnell Lecture (Fri).
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library. If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please email the convenor Laure Miolo.
- Medieval History Seminar: – 5:00, All Souls College. Nancy Thebaut (St Catherine’s College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘When Christ turns away: representing the ascension ca. 1000’.
Tuesday
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2pm, Weston Library. Those who are interested can email the convenor Laure Miolo.
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar– Tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm, Harris Manchester College. Hannah Free (Kellogg) will be speaking on ‘Christian Fanfiction? Searching for truth in biblical retellings’; Samuel Bedford (Wadham) will be speaking on ‘Reginald Pecock’s Rationalist Turn: a study in medieval intellectual biography’
Wednesday
- Methods in Arabic and Islamic Studies Class – 10:30, LMH Library.
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar on Thomasin von Zerklaere – 11:15, Oriel College. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates and access to the sources, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
- Old Norse Reading Group – 5:00, Merton College, Americas Room. This term we are reading Völsunga saga. If you are interested in joining the group, please contact one of the group convenors via email Brooklyn Arnot or Zeynep Kirca.
- The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online. To join and/or to find out more about this and the possibility of some hands-on experience of cataloguing such documents to develop further your research skills, please contact Michael Stansfield.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar, Ioannou Centre. Ekaterini Vavaliou (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Dissecting a Medieval Frontier: The Fortifications of Eastern Central Greece‘.
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we finish Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Bring any edition of the original text! There will be tea and biscuits. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email Rebecca Menmuir.
- Writing Environmental History Workshop – 2:00, Schwarzman Centre Room TBA. For updated meeting information, please email Ryan Mealiffe.
- Black Lives in the Archives: Chivalric Romances – 3:00, Weston Library. This hands-on workshop will explore how surviving medieval manuscripts can help us understand race and race-making in medieval Europe. Register here.
- Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar- 4:00, Somerville College. Spiritual and Material World, including extracts from the works of Margery Kempe, Leonor López de Córdoba and Isabel de Villena
- Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St Catherine’s College. Cécile Voyer (Université de Poitiers) will be speaking on “Under the Gaze of the Judge: New approaches to a re-reading of the Conques tympanum”
- Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures: Global Manuscript and Text Cultures Seminar – 5:15, Memorial Room, Queen’s College. Shaahin Pishbin (Queen’s) & Thomas Newbold (Asian University for Women, Chittagong) will be speaking on M’uhajir manuscripts: Field notes from the Alia Madrasa Library in Dhaka’; Jaimee Comstock-Skipp (New College) will be speaking on ‘What’s in a nisba? Manuscript makers and migrations in 16th-century Central Asia’.
- The Khalili Research Centre Seminar – 5:15, KRC Lecture Room. Suna Çağaptay (Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University) will be speaking on ‘Reading Between the Lines: The Maritime Landscape of Anaia on the Byzantine-Genoese and Aydinid Cusp’
- Guild of Medievalist Makers – 5:30, online. Making Space Session – optional theme: dreams.
- Bede Reading Group (or, ‘Bede-ing Group’) – 6:00, Blackfriars. To sign up, email Maura McKeon. Don’t stop Bede-lieving.
- Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Older Scots Reading Group – 3:00, Schwarzman room 30.401. No intensive preparation required. All are welcome and there are usually snacks. This week the theme is Orpheus and Eurydice. Contact megan.bushnell@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk for further details.
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, Merton College Mure Room. Professor Elaine Treharne (Stanford University) will be speaking on ‘The Look of the Medieval Book: Manuscripts and Their Uses’. Please join us for a drinks reception following the lecture.
- Medieval Latin Reading Group – 5:30, Christ Church. This term, we will be reading the Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris in the original. For more information, please contact Clara Bykvist or Monty Powell.
- O’ Donnell Lecture – 5:30, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Dr Aaron Griffith (Utrecht University) will be speaking on ‘Old Irish: plenty of variation, but of what kind?‘. Register for free tickets here.
- A Multilingual Moses Play – 6:30, Ioannou Centre.
Opportunities (see Medieval Studies booklet for full details)
- The experimental production of the Harrowing of Hell is still looking for players. More information can be found here.
- OMS small grants is now open! Grants are normally in the region of £100–250 and can either be for expenses or for administrative and organisational support such as publicity, filming or zoom hosting. Closing date for applications: Friday of Week 5.
- Publishing with the Journal Manuscript and Text Cultures. Are you interested in submitting to the journal Manuscript and Text Cultures? Please review the About the Journal page.
- Register for the Anglo-German Research Funding Opportunities Showcase, Wednesday, 13 May • 2 PM – 5:30 PM | Eventbrite. The Global Engagement team will host representatives from some of the major German and UK funding bodies (DFG, The Royal Society, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Royal Academy of Engineering and more) at Rhodes House; for Early Career People as well as established researchers!
- Sir John Rhŷs Prize for the study of the Celtic languages, literature, history, and antiquities. Entries should be submitted by email, with the subject line “Sir John Rhŷs Prize”, to the English Faculty Office, no later than Monday of Week 8 of Trinity Term (15 June 2026).
- CfP – 9th International Conference on Myth Criticism. Deadline: 15 May 2026
- CfP – The Nine Worthies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Deadline: 15 May 2026
- CfP – Contested Ground: Ownership and Belonging in the Middle Ages. More information here. Deadline: 1 June 2026.
- CfP – 1027 – 2027 : The World in which William was Born. More information here. Deadline: 1 June 2026.
- 20th MEMSA Anniversary Conference. More information here. Deadline: 20th June 2026.
- The Mortimer History Society will once again be offering two Research Bursaries (each of £1000) for the academic year 2026 to 2027, for PhD and MA students whose research includes any aspect of the medieval Welsh Marches or the Mortimers. More information here. Deadline: 30 June 2026.
- Bodleian Purchasing Opportunity. Do you know of books that would aid your work but are not in the Bodleian? Help us strengthen the university’s collections. You can submit details of suggested books via https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/recommend-a-purchase or by email to medieval@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.