Dr Ayoush Lazikani

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, Arabic, Anglo-Norman, Latin, and Persian texts, and she has particular interests in literature written for solitary contemplatives. She has published widely in these areas. Ayoush’s first book, Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (University of Wales Press, 2015), studies the languages of feeling—especially the interrelated affections of compassion, love, and sorrow—in texts and church wall paintings. Her second book, Cry of the Turtledove: Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, c. 1100-1250 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), is situated within the growing emphasis on 'globalization' in medieval studies, and it offers close comparative analyses of affect in medieval Arabic and English contemplative texts. She has also published numerous essays 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, Arabic, Anglo-Norman, Persian, and Latin texts in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She has particular interests in literature written for solitary contemplatives.

Publications from 2015-present

Monographs:

Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100-1250: Cry of the Turtledove (New Middle Ages Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages Series, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015)

Journal articles:

‘Encompassment in Love: Rabi’a of Basra in Dialogue with Julian of Norwich’, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 46.2 (2020), 115-136.

‘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 Wisse and the Wooing Group’, Leeds Studies in English 47 (2016), 115-35.

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

Chapters in edited collections:

‘Sea-Water in Flame: Compunction in the Lambeth and Trinity Homilies’, in Cultures of Compunction in the Medieval World, ed. Graham Williams and Charlotte Steenbrugge (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

‘What Grace in Presence: Affective Literacies in The Chastising of God’s Children’, in Late Medieval Devotional Compilations in England, ed. Marleen Cré, Diana Denissen, and Denis Renevey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 411-432.

‘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.

‘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:

‘Early Middle English’ and ‘Middle English Religious Verse’ for Year’s Work in English (2020 [for 2018]), and ‘Early Middle English’ forthcoming 2021 [for 2019])

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