Roan Runge, Magdalene

Degree: PhD
Course: ASNC
Supervisor: Prof Maire Ni Mhaonaigh
Dissertation Title:

Fleeing and Flying: a consideration of the destabilization of species, gender, and social boundaries by transformed human-animal figures


Biographical Information

I am a third-year PhD student studying depictions of creatures on the boundary between species in medieval Irish literature to c. 1200. I received my undergraduate degree in English (with a focus on medieval studies) from the University of Oxford in 2018. My undergraduate dissertation was about depictions of queer and trans women in science fiction and fantasy comics. I then studied for an MLitt in Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow in 2019, where I wrote my dissertation on creatures with unstable species in family structures in medieval Irish literature. 

I was Magdalene College MCR's Women and Non-binary officer 2020–21; was the treasurer for CCASNC (the Cambridge Coloquium for Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic) in 2021 and its co-president in 2022; and I am a Gates Cambridge scholar. My pronouns are they/them.

Research Interests

My research interests include medieval Irish literature and language, queer studies, trans studies, and animal studies. I am also interested in medieval Welsh literature and language, and insular Latin.

Selected Publications

Review: 'The Case of the Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change (Ó Síocháin)', Celtica 32 (2020), pp. 274–80.

'Survival, Power, and Panic: The Agency of Human-Animal Figures in Some Medieval Irish Texts', eSharp 27 (2019), pp. 45-52. <https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/esharp/issues/27summer2019-trans-/>