Project Members
Page Information
Author: Stephen Kelly
Revised: December 15, 2005
Reviewed: June 30, 2006
Project Director
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Doctoral Student
Affiliated doctoral and postdoctoral scholars
at Queen's
Former Project Staff
Advisory Board
Project Director
The project's director is Professor John Thompson, Chair of English Textual Cultures at Queen's. John has established research interests in the sociology of medieval literature, textuality and modern criticism, and the history of the pre-modern and early modern book in Britain and Ireland. He is the author of Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript (1987); The Middle English Cursor Mundi: Poem, Texts and Contexts (1998) and has co-edited The Court and Cultural Diversity (1997), as well as numerous articles and essays. Together with Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry he will be completing the project's monograph, Making Histories: the cultural trajectories of the English Brut tradition, in which he intends to explore Chaucerian, Spencerian and Irish connections with the tradition, and will be editing Island Identities: imagining history in britain and Ireland 1000 - 1600.
Stephen Kelly is the editor, with John Thompson, of Imagining the Book (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) and, with David Johnston, Betwixt and Between: place and cultural translation (Uxbridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006). Together with John Thompson and Ryan Perry he will be completing the project's monograph, Making Histories: the Middle English Prose Brut and the Bibliographical Imagination, in which he is developing a new, ethnographically-informed, model for the cultural capital attached to codices in the period. He is also editing a collection of essays entitled Recovering Reading: reception histories and medieval texts which will appear in 2007, and is completing his first monograph, Langland's Social Poetics - when he gets a moment... He will also edit, with John Thompson, Island Identities: imagining history in Britain and Ireland 1000 - 1600. Since March 2006, Stephen has been a Lecturer in English at Queen's.
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Ryan Perry completed his PhD thesis “The Cultural Locations of Handlyng Synne” where he traced the reception history of Robert Mannyng’s work, investigating the cultural stimuli which relate to its composition, dissemination and transmission. Ryan’s methodological focus on synchronic micro-analyses of the contexts in which manuscripts were produced, owned and read has led to him lending his services to the Imagining History project, where he is currently investigating the wide cultural utility of the Brut in the imagination of its fifteenth and sixteenth century copyists, owners and readers. Ryan's work has already borne fruit with reference to the role and function of the Brut or Yorkist and Lancastrian readers, and Ryan will now be co-authoring the project monograph, with Stephen Kelly and John Thompson. He is the author of The Material Text: A Study of Middle English manuscript Cultures, 1380-1425 (Brepols, 2007).
Doctoral Student
Bethany Sinclair is a graduate of the Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Tudor Studies at the University of Kent (MA), prior to which she studied Humanities with the Open University.
For the “Imagining History” project, Bethany will be exploring the Scottish historiographical narrative tradition in contrast to, and in contest with, the “English Brut Tradition.”
Affiliated doctoral and postdoctoral scholars at Queen's
Helen Mc Laughlin completed her English Honours degree in South Africa in 2000, and her Masters degree at Queen’s in 2002. She embarks on a PhD at Queen’s this year which will track developments in the inscription of Ireland, the Irish, and Anglo/Irish relations throughout the history of the production of the Brut. She will initially consider the absence of events surrounding Henry II’s 1169 Waterford landing in some versions of the Brut, and explore possible relationships between variations in the textual treatment of Ireland, and the production, reception and ownership of specific manuscripts. This will include specific consideration of Brut manuscripts which have been linked in some way with Ireland. Variations in the treatment of Ireland, the Irish and the Anglo/Irish relationship across a selection of the later continuations to the chronicle will also be considered.
Other of the doctoral and postdoctoral scholars associated with the Traditions of the Book research group at Queen's are exploring issues which intersect with those of the project. Please visit the Traditions of the Book site for information on their research
Former Project Staff
Jason O'Rourke was an AHRB Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the project from September 2002 until November 2004, when he took leave until the conclusion of his contract in August 2005. Jason had primary responsibility for describing the manuscripts of the Prose Brut. Work which remained to be completed will, from September 1, 2005, be undertaken by Dr Ryan Perry and Professor John Thompson. The project team wishes Jason the best in his future career.
