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Varnam, Dr Laura
Job Title: College Lecturer in Old and Middle English
College: University
Period/ Subject: Medieval
Email address: laura.varnam@univ.ox.ac.uk
Research Interests:
Sacred space; church architecture; material culture; popular religion; memory; Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich; John Mirk’s Festial; hagiography.
Teaching Areas:
Old English, Middle English, History of the Language Beowulf and The Exeter Book special topics, Course II.
Recent Publications:
‘Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde’ in The Cambridge History of English Poetry, ed. M. S. C. O’Neill (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.81-95
‘Sanctity and the City: Sacred Space in The Life of St Werburge’ in Mapping the Medieval City: Space, Place, and Identity in Chester c.1200-1600, ed. Catherine A. M. Clarke (University of Wales Press, forthcoming May 2011)
'The Book of the Foundation of St Bartholomew's Church: Consecration, Restoration, and Translation', in Sacred Space - Sacred Text, ed. Joseph Sterrett and Peter Thomas (Brill, forthcoming August 2011)
'Church', in A Handbook to Middle English Studies, Blackwells Critical Theory Handbooks, ed. Marion Turner (Blackwells, forthcoming 2012)
Other Information:
Dr Laura Varnam did her BA at Durham, her MA at Leeds, and her DPhil at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is the College Lecturer in Old and Middle English at University College, Oxford. Laura is currently writing a book entitled The Howse of God on Erthe: Sacred Space, Community, and Material Culture in Late Medieval England. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and in June 2008 she co-organised an interdisciplinary conference at Balliol College, Oxford, with Dr Kathryne Beebe and Dr Bernard Gowers, entitled ‘There and Back Again: Re-Fashioning Journey and Place in the Middle Ages’. Laura is on the editorial board for the Durham English Review. Laura is also writing a book on Daphne du Maurier and gave a talk at the 2010 and 2011 Daphne du Maurier Festival of Arts and Literature in Fowey, Cornwall.
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