Book At Lunchtime: All Men Must Die

When: 12.30pm (Lunch), 1-2pm (Discussion) on Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Where: Radcliffe Humanities Seminar Room

Winter is indeed coming and Book at Lunchtime focuses on Professor Carolyne Larrington’s All Men Must Die.

‘All men must die’: or ‘Valar Morghulis’, as the traditional Essos greeting is rendered in High Valyrian. And die they do – in prodigious numbers; in imaginatively varied and gruesome ways; and often in terror within the viciously unpredictable world that is HBO’s sensational evocation of Game of Thrones. Epic in scope and in imaginative breadth, the stories that are brought to life tell of the dramatic rise and fall of nations, the brutal sweeping away of old orders and the advent of new autarchs in the eternal quest for dominion.

Yet, as this book reveals, many potent and intimate narratives of love and passion can be found within these grand landscapes of heroism, honour and death. They focus on strong relationships between women and family, as well as among the anti-heroes, the ‘cripples, bastards and broken things’. In this vital follow-up to Winter Is Coming (2015), acclaimed medievalist Professor Carolyne Larrington (St John’s College) explores themes of power, blood-kin, lust and sex in order to draw entirely fresh meanings out of the show of the century.

Professor Larrington is joined by panellists Dr Katherine Olley (English) and Dr Laura Varnam (English) discuss the themes and narratives of her latest book.

Book your place here.

New Book by Oxford Medievalist Deborah Grice

Calling all medievalists interested in the history of the early universities or the development of doctrine….

Deborah Grice’s ‘Church, Society and University: the Paris Condemnation of 1241/4’ was originally published in hardback by Routledge in August 2019. But it is now in paperback at £36.99 (available direct from them or on Amazon).

Moreover, there is a promotional code of 30% if buying it from Routledge, PBC30, valid until 31st October.

Church, Society and University: The Paris Condemnation of 1241/4 (Studies  in Medieval History and Culture): Amazon.co.uk: Grice, Deborah:  9780367194383: Books

The book examines the list of condemned theological propositions issued in 1241/4 by the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne. It represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university’s early maturation, and it provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews.