Members

CeSMA brings together a wealth of medievalists' expertise from different departments across the University.

Dr Amy Burge

Dr Amy Burge

Associate Professor in Popular Fiction

Department of English Literature

My teaching and research interests are in popular fiction, in particular romance, both medieval and modern. My work is intersectional and focuses on gender, ethnicity and sexuality. I’m currently working on a literary history of romantic masculinity and a project exploring Arab and Muslim women’s genre fiction.

Dr Chris Callow

Dr Chris Callow

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

Department of History

My teaching and research centre on the Vikings, the history and archaeology of medieval Iceland, and Old Norse literature. Some of these interests show themselves in my book, Landscape, Tradition and Power in Medieval Iceland(2020). I am interested in how communities and individuals recall and write about the past, in the case of medieval texts like Sagas of Icelanders but also more generally. ...

Dr Megan Cavell

Dr Megan Cavell

Associate Professor

Department of English Literature

I work on a range of topics in medieval studies, from Old English and Latin languages and literature to riddles, animals and gender.

Dr Paolo De Ventura

Lecturer

Department of Modern Languages

I study early Italian literature and the historical evolution of the Italian language. I love Dante and his world, which is the fascinating and complex universe of the art and thought of the European Middle Ages.

Dr Archie Dunn

Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Archaeology

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Archie Dunn is a Member of the Council of the British School at Athens, the Committee of the Cotton Foundation and  the editorial board of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He directs the Survey of Ancient Thisve/Byzantine Kastorion (Central Greece)in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service.

Dr Victoria Flood

Dr Victoria Flood

Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature

Department of English Literature

My research explores pre-modern historical and legendary content, alongside its later reception histories. My work has a particular focus on cross-border translation and transmission, as well as the application of digital humanities approaches to contemporary community-based research. I am co-PI on the Alexander von Humboldt-funded international network Crossing Borders in the Insular Middle ...

Dr David Griffith

Dr David Griffith

Senior Lecturer in English Medieval Studies

Department of English Literature

My primary area of research is the later medieval period into the early sixteenth century.  I work on medieval epigraphy, vernacularity, memorialisation, antiquarianism, and relations between textual and visual cultures, with a particular focus upon in the parish church.  I also have interests in writings of and about the First World War, especially prose writers of the 1910s and 20s ...

Professor Nigel Harris

Professor Nigel Harris

Professor of German

Department of Modern Languages

I am a medievalist with an extension into the sixteenth century. I am particularly interested in late-medieval didactic literature in German and Latin, in the presentation of animals in literature, and in the Swiss Reformation.

Dr Elizabeth L'Estrange

Dr Elizabeth L'Estrange

Associate Professor in History of Art

Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies

My teaching and research focuses on the art and culture of the late medieval and early modern period, especially illuminated manuscripts and book culture, and French and Burgundian court art. Within these areas, I work specifically on women as subjects and consumers of visual cultures, text-image relations, and the querelle des femmes. My research addresses, for instance, questions of maternity, ...

Dr James Norrie

Dr James Norrie

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

Department of History

I am a historian of medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with wider interests in the global history of the pre-modern past. I study urban change and radical social movements, and my first book examines the transformation of the city of Milan in the long eleventh century. As a Leverhulme Fellow, I am working on how the use of coinage in the same period altered experiences of religion and gender ...

Professor William Purkis

Professor William Purkis

Professor of Medieval History
Head of School of History and Cultures

Department of History

I am a historian of medieval religious cultures (c.1000–c.1300), with particular interests in crusading, pilgrimage and monasticism.

Dr Daniel Reynolds

Dr Daniel Reynolds

Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Daniel Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History with research interests in the material and visual culture of the Byzantine empire, the Byzantine and early Islamic Levant (c.350-c.1099), “iconoclasm” and the history of peasant and non-elite communities (c.400-1000). He is co-director of the project “At the Crossroads of Empires: the Longobard Church of ...

Dr Olivia (Liv) Robinson

Dr Olivia (Liv) Robinson

Lecturer in Late Medieval Literature

Department of English Literature

My work focuses on Anglo-French literary cultures and on medieval theatre, particularly theatre copied and performed by medieval women.  I am currently working on a research project on drama in medieval women’s religious houses. The Medieval Convent Drama Project, which is fully funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, explores the theatrical cultures and activities of medieval ...

Dr Gareth Sears

Dr Gareth Sears

Associate Professor in Ancient History

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

I am a Roman historian who teaches and researches on the city, city life and religious change in the Roman world and in particular late Roman North Africa.

Dr Philippa Semper

Dr Philippa Semper

Senior Lecturer in English

Department of English Literature

My work centres on Old English language and literature and the interaction between text and image in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts; I also write about and teach modern fantasy literature and its relationships with medieval texts.

Dr Katharine Sykes

Dr Katharine Sykes

Associate Professor in Early Medieval History

Department of History

I work on the creation and regulation of communities in the early and central middle ages. I’m particularly interested in the ways in which institutions or groups of people – as well as individuals – were gendered. I’ve just finished writing a book on monasteries and families in the early middle ages (600CE-1100CE); previously, I’ve worked on the origins of ...

Professor Aengus Ward

Professor Aengus Ward

Professor in Medieval Iberian Studies

Department of Modern Languages

I have been a lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages (Hispanic Studies) since 1994. I teach medieval Spanish literature and Spanish language and linguistics. My research interests lie in the fields of medieval Spanish history and historiography, textual editing, diachronic phonology and syntax.

My research project the Estoria de Espanna Digital (estoria.bham.ac.uk) is the first major ...

Dr Emily Wingfield

Dr Emily Wingfield

Senior Lecturer

Department of English Literature

I’m a Lecturer in English Literature. I teach pre-1800 literature, with a particular focus on the Medieval and Renaissance periods. As a researcher, I work on medieval Scottish literature. I am particularly interested in romance, manuscript study, and book history.

Dr Simon Yarrow

Dr Simon Yarrow

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

School of History and Cultures

I teach the history of religion and society in the early and central middle ages, and research on the cult of saints’ relics, miracles and religious cultures from the tenth to the thirteenth century in England. I am also the Director of Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures.

Emeritus and Honorary members

Professor Leslie Brubaker

Professor Leslie Brubaker

Professor Emerita of Byzantine Art

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

I am Professor Emerita of Byzantine Art History, with particular interest in the cult of the Virgin, ‘iconoclasm’, the relationship between text and image, manuscripts, and gender.  I am also Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, which is a unique research cluster with an international reputation, a thriving postgraduate community, and its ...

Prof Simon Esmonde Cleary

Prof Simon Esmonde Cleary

Emeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

I am a specialist in Roman archaeology with interests centring on Roman Britain and on Roman France Germany and Spain and Portugal, with a particular interest in Late Antiquity.

Dr John Hunt

Dr John Hunt

Honorary Research Fellow

Department of History

I am a medievalist working primarily on regional history and archaeology, medieval lordship and community, and cultural history, in England and France between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. My current research is focussed particularly on parish churches.

Dr Christopher Markiewicz

Dr Christopher Markiewicz

Honorary Senior Research Fellow

Department of History

I am the Associate Professor in Ottoman and Islamic History  in the Department of History and a member of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies. My research focuses on the intellectual and political history of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. I am particularly interested in how ideas about history and the nature of kingship in ...

Professor Wendy Scase

Professor Wendy Scase

Emeritus Geoffrey Shepherd Professor of Medieval English Literature

Department of English Literature

I am a specialist in medieval English language and literature with strong manuscripts, archival, and interdisciplinary experience. My work addresses questions that trouble the conventional boundaries between literary and other discourses, and is informed by the belief that medieval textual research can contribute to cultural history and enrich theory and practice in English studies. I became ...

Professor Robert Swanson

Emeritus Professor of Medieval History

Department of History

I studied for a degree in History at Cambridge University, graduating in 1972. I then stayed at Cambridge for doctoral research, on the activities of European universities in the crisis caused by the division in the papacy between 1378 and 1417. I joined the History Department at Birmingham in October 1979. I retired at the end of December 2016.

Professor David Thomas

Professor David Thomas

Emeritus Professor of Christianity and Islam
Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Interreligious Relations

Department of Theology and Religion

For many years one of my specialist interests has been the history of religious thought in Islam and the structure of Islamic religious thinking. A particular aspect of this is relations between Muslims and followers of other faiths, especially Christianity. I have made this a major topic of my research and writing.

Dr Roger White

Dr Roger White

Honorary Senior Lecturer in Archaeology

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology

Roger White is an archaeologist researching the late Roman to early medieval transition in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and a past member of the Historic England Advisory Committee (2011-17). He also has expertise in Heritage Management and has written conservation management plans for sites in the UK, ...

Professor Chris Wickham

Emeritus Professor of Medieval History

Department of History

I study Medieval history, 400-1250, especially Italy and comparative history

Doctoral researchers

Our postgraduates also form a vital part of our research community and their research topics and interests are also linked to below. Postgraduates working on medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern research also run the vibrant EMREM series of seminars and workshops (see EMREM forum).

Rachael Helen Banes

Rachael Helen Banes

Doctoral Researcher

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Title of thesis:  Scratch That: A Comparative Approach to the Sociology of Graffiti in Late Antiquity c. 300-750 CE

Email
rhb474@student.bham.ac.uk

Laura Clark

Laura Clark

Doctoral Researcher

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Title of thesis:  Burials, Grave Goods, and Commemoration of the Dead in Early Byzantium (4th - 7th centuries)

Email
lmc682@student.bham.ac.uk

Kyriakos Fragkoulis

Kyriakos Fragkoulis

Doctoral researcher

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Title of thesis: Late Roman Pottery from Dion, Greece: The Ceramic Evidence as a Means of Investigating the Historical, Social and Economic Transformations in a City of Central Macedonia during Late Antiquity

Supervisor:  Archie Dunn

Email
kxf744@student.bham.ac.uk