Dr Hannah Lucas, Newnham

hal32@cam.ac.uk

Biographical Information

I am a Junior Research Fellow at Newnham College, where I also act as a supervisor, assistant tutor, and postgraduate mentor.

I read English at Oxford for my BA, before migrating to Emmanuel College in Cambridge for my MPhil in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. My DPhil was also based at the University of Oxford.

Research Interests

My research lies the intersection of literary history, religious studies, theology and philosophy—focused on contemplative texts and practices, and the relationship between the medieval and the modern.

I am currently preparing a monograph, Impossible Recovery: Julian of Norwich and the Phenomenology of Wellbeing, which brings the Julian of Norwich texts into dialogue with Heideggerian philosophy to investigate the intersection of wellbeing, illness, and revelation. Another ongoing project explores the relevance of medieval contemplative texts to literary criticism.

This year, I am convening the 'Contemplation: Theory / Practice' research network at CRASSH.

Selected Publications

Articles

'Negative Capabilities: Investigating Apophasis in AI Text-to-Image Models', Religions (2023), DOI:10.3390/rel14060812

‘Passion and Melancholy: Julian of Norwich’s Medical Hermeneutic’, Review of English Studies (2020), DOI:10.1093/res/hgaa022

‘Private Pilgrimages at Syon Abbey? A Note on Cambridge University Library MS Ff.6.33’, Notes and Queries 66.2 (2019), 219-22

‘“Clad in flesch and blood”: The Sartorial Body and Female Self-Fashioning in The Book of Margery Kempe’, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 45.1 (2019), 29-60

‘Locating More: The Dialogical Gardenscapes of Thomas More and Ellis Heywood’s Il Moro’, Moreana 53.205-6 (2016), 179-96

Online Publications

‘Good Things Coming: On Julian of Norwich and Living Through Pandemic’, Artsolation – Sharing Visual Cultures (2020)

‘Private Pilgrimages at Syon Abbey? A Note on Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff.6.33’, The Manuscripts Lab – University of Cambridge (2018)

‘The Orcherd of Syon: Horticulture and “Hele” at Syon Abbey’, My Sister My Spouse: Exploring the Medieval Hortus Conclusus – A Leverhulme Project Blog (2017)