After completing my PhD I tutored in Medieval English at the University of Exeter, and then went to Ireland to teach at University College Dublin for several years. I moved back to the UK when I joined the English Department at the University of Birmingham.

I teach and convene all modules on Old English language and literature for the English undergraduate programme, and offer a final-year literature option on ‘Fantasy and Fandom’. I also contribute modules for the MRes in Medieval Studies and the MA in Medieval Studies (Literature Pathway).

I currently supervise postgraduate students working in the areas of Old English language and literature and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. This work includes the interpretation of the Old English Phoenix (MPhil), the myth of the woman in the water in Beowulf (MPhil), the labours of the months in two Anglo-Saxon calendars (MPhil), the uses of landscape in Anglo-Saxon poetry (PhD) and the discourses of knowledge and power in Old English literature (PhD).

I welcome enquiries from graduate students wishing to study for Masters and PhD projects on the following: Old English literature, especially the prose of secular learning and poetry containing runes; text-image relationships in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and in later medieval manuscripts of secular texts; modern fantasy literature.

My interests centre on Old English literature and the ways in which it was written, read and understood in the Anglo-Saxon period. Much of my research is interdisciplinary in nature, and examines the relationships between text and image in medieval manuscripts, focusing in particular on medieval diagrams. I am interested in the various reading strategies required by differing forms of visual exposition, and the implications of such strategies for both the production and the use of manuscripts, and am currently working on a book which addresses these issues. Recently I have also begun work on the medievalism of modern fantasy writing.

Research groups

I am part of the Medieval English Research Group in the Department of English and an active member of the Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages in the College of Arts and Law.

Conferences

In January 2010 I organised the Annual Gender and Medieval Studies Conference on Gender and the Family at Birmingham with Dr Simon Yarrow. I organised 'Identity and Cultural Exchange 600-1600: Contact, Travel and Trade' at Birmingham in 2002 and was also heavily involved in arranging the `Manuscripts of the West Midlands' conference (Birmingham, April 2003) and the 3rd International Piers Plowman conference (Birmingham, July 2003). I ran the Graduate Medieval Seminar at Birmingham until 2009 and have contributed to seminar series in the Department of History and the Institute for Antiquity and Archaeology.

I have co-ordinated several panels at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, most recently in 2010, and frequently give papers both there and at other conferences in the UK, Ireland and the US. I am a member of the Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland.

E-learning

I have been involved in developing web-based learning materials for the study of medieval languages and literature for some time, and am currently e-learning Champion for the College of Arts and Law. I also run a blog to complement my fantasy module.

Conference papers

Recent conference papers include:

 ‘Tolkien’s Old English: Anglo-Saxon poetry and the creation of a fantastical literary tradition,’ Mythopoeic Society Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 2011.

‘The hero’s charisma : Beowulf and the heroic transformations of William Morris,’ International Conference on Charisma: After Weber, June 2011.

‘Teaching and learning with Byrhtferth in eleventh-century England,’ Medieval History Research Seminar, Birmingham, November 2008.

‘Representing creation: text and image in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts,’ International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 2008.

 ‘Preosta saltus’ or ‘what is necessary for priests to know’: educating the clergy in eleventh-century England,’ International Congress on Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo,May 2008.

 ‘Palimpsestic poetry: carmina figurata, Hrabanus Maurus and Anglo-Saxon images of the cross,’ Leicester Medieval Seminar, February 2008.

 ‘Looking to remember: ‘seen text’ in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts,’ National University of Ireland, Galway, February 2006.

Selected publications

Old English Poetry in Context (Continuum, forthcoming 2012).

‘My Other World: Historical Reflections and Refractions in Modern Arthurian Fantasy.’ In Medieval Afterlives, ed. Gail Ashton and Daniel T. Kline (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).

‘‘Byð se ealda man ceald and snoflig': Stereotypes and Subversions of the Last Stages of the Life-Cycle in Old English Texts and Anglo-Saxon Contexts.’ In Medieval Lifecycles: Continuity and Change, ed. Isabelle Cochelin and Karen Smyth (Brepols, in press).

‘Old English Literature.’ In The English Literature Companion, ed. Julian Wolfreys, Palgrave Student Companions Series (Palgrave, 2010), 65-72., ed. Julian Wolfreys, Palgrave Student Companions Series (Palgrave, 2010), 65-72.

‘’The wonders that they myghte seen or here’: Designing and Using Web-based Resources to Teach Medieval Literature.’ In Teaching Chaucer in the University, ed. Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

 ‘Doctrine and Diagrams: Maintaining the Order of the World in Anglo-Saxon England.’ In The Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Paul Cavill ( Brewer, 2004) 121-137.

'Going round in circles? Time in the Old English Apollonius of Tyre.'In Time and Eternity: The Medieval Discourse, ed. G. Jaritz and G. Moreno-Riano ( Brepols, 2003) 297-308.