Siobhain Bly Calkin
I am intrigued by the ways in which medieval texts circulated, and by their cultural engagements with the world that produced and consumed them. Medieval depictions of cross-cultural contact, conflict and conquest, especially across religious lines, also fascinate me and have been the focus of much of my research.
My 2005 book and many of my articles discuss the depictions of Muslims in late medieval English texts and their relation to ideas of nationalism, chivalry, violence, and crusade. Questions about manuscript culture, its fluidity, and the reception of antecedent texts also animate much of my work.
I am currently working on a book project about narratives produced between 1095 and 1500 recounting the circulation of Christian relics in Muslim contexts. This book will study how such narratives illuminate late medieval Christian anxieties about the complex interactions between devotional objects and the devout subjects that worship them. I am particularly interested in the theological and cultural challenges encountered when narrating such episodes (whether lived or imagined), and the strategies deployed to articulate cultural dispossession. This research has led me into a sustained consideration of thing theory, medieval materialism, and the ways in which things structure and inform the human subjects around them.
When this project is complete, I hope to pursue my inquiries into medieval notions of textual closure and the ways in which different scribes chose to end or complete apparently unfinished vernacular texts in the Middle Ages.
Address: 1812 Dunton Tower
Dept. of English
Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 CANADA
My 2005 book and many of my articles discuss the depictions of Muslims in late medieval English texts and their relation to ideas of nationalism, chivalry, violence, and crusade. Questions about manuscript culture, its fluidity, and the reception of antecedent texts also animate much of my work.
I am currently working on a book project about narratives produced between 1095 and 1500 recounting the circulation of Christian relics in Muslim contexts. This book will study how such narratives illuminate late medieval Christian anxieties about the complex interactions between devotional objects and the devout subjects that worship them. I am particularly interested in the theological and cultural challenges encountered when narrating such episodes (whether lived or imagined), and the strategies deployed to articulate cultural dispossession. This research has led me into a sustained consideration of thing theory, medieval materialism, and the ways in which things structure and inform the human subjects around them.
When this project is complete, I hope to pursue my inquiries into medieval notions of textual closure and the ways in which different scribes chose to end or complete apparently unfinished vernacular texts in the Middle Ages.
Address: 1812 Dunton Tower
Dept. of English
Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 CANADA
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