Dr Ayoush Lazikani

Stipendiary Lecturer
Hertford College

Ayoush Lazikani is a SEDA-accredited tutor, teaching and lecturing in Old English and Middle English. As a researcher, Ayoush works in the history of emotions, specializing in devotional writing of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Her research considers English, Anglo-Norman, and Latin texts, and she has particular interests in literature written for religious recluses. Ayoush’s first book, Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (University of Wales Press, 2015), studied the languages of feeling—especially the interrelated affections of compassion, love, and sorrow—in texts and church wall paintings. Her second book, Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, c. 1100-1250, is due to be published in 2021. She has also published numerous articles in the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, the Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, Leeds Studies in English, and various edited collections. 

Ayoush specializes in devotional, contemplative, and other spiritual writing from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Her research has focused on emotion in English, Latin, and Anglo-Norman texts in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She has particular interests in literature written for religious recluses in the pre- and post-Conquest periods.

She is currently working on a comparative study across English and Arabic, looking at 'feeling' in medieval Christian and Islamic contemplative texts.

 

Publications of the past four years:

Book:

Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015).

Articles and chapters:

‘What Grace in Presence: Affective Literacies in The Chastising of God’s Children and Church Wall Paintings’, in Late Medieval Devotional Compilations in England, ed. Marleen Cré, Diana Denissen, and Denis Renevey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), pp. 319-335.

‘Moving Lights: An Affective Reading of On leome is in this world ilist and Church Wall Paintings’, in Middle English Lyrics: New Readings of Short Poems, ed. Julia Boffey and Christiania Whitehead (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018), pp. 31-44.

‘The Vagabond Mind: Depression and the Medieval Anchorite’, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 6 (2017), 141-68. 

‘Seeking Intimacy in the Wooing Group’, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 43.2 (2017), 157-85.

‘The Wounded Beloved: Affective Wounding in Ancrene Wisseand the Wooing Group’, Leeds Studies in English, New Series 47 (2016), 115-35.

‘Liminal Performance in Hali Meiðhad’, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 42.1 (2016), 28-43. 

‘Remembrance and Time in the Wooing Group’, in Reconsidering Gender, Time and Memory in Medieval Culture, ed. Elizabeth Cox, Liz Herbert McAvoy and Roberta Magnani (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2015), pp. 79-94.

Reviews:

Review of Medieval Anchorites in their Communities, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy and Cate Gunn (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2017): Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 7 (2018), 329-332.

Review of Speculum Inclusorum: A Mirror for Recluses, ed. E. A. Jones, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013):  JEGP 114.4 (2015), 596-99.

Ayoush is a SEDA-accredited tutor; she teaches and lectures in the following areas:

Old English (Prelims Paper 2; FHS Course II Paper 1)

Middle English (FHS Course I Paper 2 and Course II Papers 2 & 3)

Andalusian Arabic lyric (Course II Paper 2)

Various dissertation topics in Old English and Middle English-- including saints' lives, devotional literature, medieval drama, Arthurian romance, and 'Beowulf' (Paper 7)

  

Publications

  • Seeking intimacy in the wooing group

    2017
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures
    © 2017 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. This article examines the five lyrical meditations known collectively as the Wooing Group, focusing on the anchoritic reader’s nurturance of her affective literacies in reading these texts. The presence-absence of the Lover Christ and the Virgin Mary is central to the affective strategies of the meditations: the anchoress is engaged in a continual search for Christ and his mother, drawing close to them only to find herself distanced again.

  • The Vagabond Mind: Depression and the Medieval Anchorite

    2017
    |
    Journal article
    |
    The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies

  • Liminal Performance in Hali Meiðhad

    2016
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures

  • The Wounded Beloved: Affective Wounding in Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group

    2016
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Leeds Studies in English

  • SPECULUM INCLUSORUM/A MIRROR FOR RECLUSES: A LATE-MEDIEVAL GUIDE FOR ANCHORITES AND ITS MIDDLE ENGLISH TRANSLATION

    2015
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    Journal article
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    JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY
    • More