The lecture, ‘Meritocratic Values in High Medieval Literature’, is to be delivered by Professor Lars Bøje Mortensen, University of Southern Denmark, on Thursday, 3rd December 2015 at 5pm in GR06/07, English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, followed by wine reception in the social space. All welcome!

The Department of the History of Art organizes the programme for the annual Medieval Art Seminar Series 2015-2016. The seminars will explore representations of the body within medieval art, particularly focusing on the use of surfaces, media and textures, as well as artistic and object agency.

Papers are held on alternating Mondays during Michaelmas and Lent Terms in the History of Art Graduate Centre at 4A Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QA (across the street from the Department, above Hot Numbers coffee shop), beginning promptly at 5:30pm. Following questions, attendees are invited to stay and speak more informally with speakers over wine and light nibbles. Lectures are free and open to the public.

For more information, please visit http://www.hoart.cam.ac.uk/seminars/medievalartseminars or email Anya at aejb2@cam.ac.uk.

Conference venue: University of Bristol Conference date: 29 January 2016

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for the Interdisciplinary Approaches and Regional Variations in European Witchcraft Studies one day conference at the University of Bristol. The conference offers the opportunity for postgraduate students and early career researchers engaged in researching magical beliefs throughout Europe to discuss and share their work. We welcome abstracts from postgraduate students and early career researchers on all aspects of this topic from ancient to modern history, literature, art, philosophy and archaeology.

Please send abstracts of 200-300 words to victoria.carr@bristol.ac.uk for papers no longer than 20 minutes by Monday 30th November, 2015. For more information, please visit: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/events/conferences/european-witchcraft/

‘Approaching the Medieval’, the interdisciplinary medieval reading group, will be hosting our first ever interlocutor session on Tuesday 24th November. This session begins at 12.30 and ends at 2pm. Lawrie Dower, a first-year PhD student at the University of Dundee, will speak on ‘Lovers be war and tak gude heid about: memento mori in Henryson’. We will be meeting in room 327, The Raised Faculty Building. Tea and biscuits will be served afterwards. Please join us for the discussion and lunch afterwards.

The Medieval Reading Group will hold a Christmas-themed meeting on Wednesday, 2^nd Dec at 5:15PM in GR03, Faculty of English. There will be two papers on topics related to Christmas (see below), discussion, as well as wine and mince pies in the social space to warm up the cold winter evening. Please join us for a festive and inspirational meeting!

Victoria Condie: ‘Recollect and Remind: Apocryphal Infancy Narratives in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Texts’

Bernardo S. Hinojosa: ‘Christmas in Narnia: C.S. Lewis, Medieval Christology, and the Problem of Father Christmas”

If you are interested in giving a paper at the reading group next term, please get in touch with Brianna Dougher (bd345@cam.ac.uk).

On Wednesday 25 November 2015, the Middle English Seminar will meet to hear Marion Turner (Oxford) speak on ‘Chamber, Court, and Counting-House: Writing the Spaces of Chaucer’s Life. We will gather as usual around 5:00PM in the English Faculty Board Room for a 5:15PM start. All are welcome to join the dinner afterwards.

The Medieval Reading Group will meet on Wednesday, 18 Nov at 5:15PM in GR03, Faculty of English to hear Rosalind Lintott’s paper ‘T. H. White: The Great Medievalist Who Never Was’. All are welcome to join us for an interesting discussion followed by wine and snacks!

T.H. White’s /The Once and Future King/ is one of the most popular children’s book series of the last century. It also marks a significant moment in modern readings of Thomas Malory’s /Le Morte Darthur/, a work that the polymath White deemed both ‘a perfect Aristotelian tragedy’ and ‘an antidote for War’. This paper will explore White’s engagement with Malory’s and other medieval authors’ works and his influence upon popular culture representations of the Middle Ages in the latter half of the twentieth century. It will also discuss his academic aspirations, manifested particularly in his /The Book of Beasts/, a translation and commentary of a Bestiary in Cambridge, University Library MS Ii.4.26, and the impact of medieval natural philosophy on his wartime writings.

Next Wednesday (11 November) we will meet in the Board Room in English Faculty Building at 5:15PM to hear Professor Paul Binski talk about ‘Artifice, Nature and the Ascetic Imperative in Gothic Art’.

Paul Binski is Professor of the History of Medieval Art. He has recently completed a three-year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship devoted to a project to be published as Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style 1290-1350, with Yale University Press, 2014. He has now returned as Head of the Department of History Art, 2014-2016.

The second Medieval French Research Seminar of this term will take place on Thursday 12th November at 5pm in the Audit Room, King’s College.

We will be hearing a jointly-authored paper from Dr Jane Gilbert (University College London) and Dr Sara Harris (Sidney Sussex, Cambridge). Dr Gilbert and Dr Harris will be speaking on their collaborative project entitled ‘Comparative Literacies, or, How do you know which language you are reading (and does it matter?)’. Wine and water will be served; all are welcome. Please contact bag28@cam.ac.uk or mb754@cam.ac.uk if you have any questions or accessibility requirements.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Nicolette Zeeman has been elected to the Professorship of Medieval and Renaissance English from 1^st January 2016.