Medieval Metamorphoses

It all started during an A level English Literature lesson. As most of you know, not so very long ago, before I was lucky enough to secure an academic job, I was a secondary school English teacher. The best part of the job, for me, was teaching A level classes, because if the universe was … More Love, Laughter, Melancholia, and a Pot of Basil

I had a big birthday in September. It passed without incident, in fact. I had a party. It was fun. I escaped the proverbial existential angst – there was no tattoo (although this is something still in consideration), no sports car purchase (I wish), no escape to a Tibetan monastery for a week of fasting, … More The Prime of Life? Embracing the Middle Age

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on a train, munching snacks, and working rather ineffectually on my laptop. In a moment of serendipity, since I had just left some dear friends in Cambridge and had regaled them with tales about the interesting people that I’ve met on trains over the years (including a Catholic … More When is a womb not a womb? The Handmaid’s Tale, retold

When reading the extraordinary writings of the mystics and visionaries of the Middle Ages it is impossible to ignore the multisensory complexity of spiritual experience. The colours, sounds, music, smells and taste of spiritual ecstasy are evoked, often synaesthetically, by holy women like Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena. So when Professor Barry Smith’s … More Sensing the Extraordinary

I’m currently reworking my PhD thesis into a book. I knew that this process would not be easy (I’ve read the books about writing The Book). But no one said it would be painful. I mean this partly in jest. My monograph is about the inimitable Margery Kempe, from a medical perspective, and the painful … More Pain and the Embodied Text

2016 has without doubt been the year of loss. The cruellest of years from the Grim Reaper of  Legends. The world has lost so many cultural icons this year through the ruthless and indiscriminate hand of mortality that it has often seemed like an entire, year-length Groundhog-April-Fool’s Day. First, the great David Bowie, famous for … More The Annus Horribilis of 2016: Medieval Holy Legends, stars lost, and stars found

In the Christian Middle Ages, death was emphasised as the great equaliser by the artistic, allegorical genre, the Danse Macabre. From peasants to kings, none could escape the final ending, and the latent whispers of death beset the ears of all medieval people, especially after the merciless plague, or Black Death, of 1346-53. As a … More ‘Beginnings’ and the Danse Macabre

My recent article about powerful medieval women and the ramifications for women-in-power, published in The Conversation, and again in The Independent online, stimulated quite some debate. Surely, commentators asked, visionaries like Catherine of Siena and Joan of Arc were “delusional”, or “ignorant”? Why should their experiences be taken seriously? Weren’t they simply brainwashed individuals of … More Can we ever find ‘truth’ in the personal stories of history? 

  Tonight, the moon is at its closest, and brightest, for 68 years. Not until 2034 will it reach the same latitude and illumination; a timely reminder of the immensity of our solar system and the epic proportion of the speed, distance, and relativity of the innumerable spheres of rock that orbit in space. Ours … More A Supermoon-Remembrance for the Martyrs of the World