Humma Mouzam

• Bachelor of Arts with Honours, Class I (First) in English Literature (University of Birmingham).

• Master of Arts, Class Distinction in Literature and Culture (University of Birmingham).

I completed my BA in English Literature in 2016 and my MA in Literature and Culture in 2018, and was introduced to medieval Arthurian literature in my second year of postgraduate study. My MA dissertation, a comparative study on Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and its later reception, led to my current research interest in Arthurian motifs. In October 2018, I began my PhD in the Department of English Literature, under the supervision of Dr Victoria Flood, Professor Hugh Adlington and Dr Megan Cavell.

• Mapping the Middle Ages: Cultural Encounters in the Medieval East and West. MA Seminar Week 11: Journeys to the Far North.

My thesis explores the far-reaching literary and cultural influences, drawn from European and Arabic sources, which informed the development of the dragon as a cultural symbol in English Arthurian literature produced between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. It traces literary-cultural transmission within and across medieval and early modern Arthurian works and considers wider political and sociocultural settings, in order to interrogate insular understandings of literary motifs.

My research interests include: Arthurian literatures, medieval motifs, literary-cultural transmission (specifically twelfth-century Latin translators and their translations of Arabic astrological works), supernatural monsters, cross-cultural borders, insular/ national identity.

Research groups:

• Organising committee member of The Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Forum (TIMES) June 2020 Annual Symposium
• Committee member of the Islamic Arts and Cultural Heritage Society
• Member of the student-led Literary Early Modern and Medieval research group (LEMMæ)
• Member of the Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages (CESMA)
• Member of the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies (CREMS)
• Member of the International Arthurian Society, British Branch (IAS BB)
• Member of the Crossing Borders in the Insular Middle Ages research network

Research papers:

• 2019: IAS BB, Durham University. Paper given: ‘Powerful Places and Stellar Skies: Medieval Britain and the astrological material of the Arab world’ (revised).
• 2019: EMREM Annual Symposium, University of Birmingham. Paper given: ‘Powerful Places and Stellar Skies: Medieval Britain and the astrological material of the Arab world’.

Research grants:

• Supported in my first doctoral year by the Birmingham Doctoral Scholarship and The Vinaver Trust Award.
• Supported in my second year onwards by the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.