Goldsmiths - University of London

Professor Alcuin Blamires

BA (Hons) English Language & Literature, University of Oxford, 1968; M.Phil in Medieval English Studies, University of Oxford, 1970. Senior lecturer at University of Wales, Lampeter (1970-1999). Appointed Reader at Goldsmiths 1999; appointed professor in 2004.

Grants & awards

My most major recent grant was $50,000 (1993-9) from the New York Florence Gould Foundation, held jointly with Gail Holian (Georgian Court College, NJ) for research on manuscript illuminations of the Roman de la Rose. I secured smaller British Academy grants to subsidize two of the biennial London Chaucer Conferences – a series which I co-founded.

Professional activities

Member of

• New Chaucer Society
• Society for Study of Medieval Languages and Literature
• Early Book Society
• AHRC Peer Review College
  

Member of Advisory Boards of:

• Exemplaria: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (U of Florida)
• Mediaevalia et Humanistica (Brepols)
• Medieval and Renaissance Court Cultures (Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Trinity College Dublin)

External examinerships:

• MA English Literary Studies (Durham, 2007-); BA English (Birkbeck College, 2005-); MA Medieval and Tudor Studies (Kent, 2001-5) MA Medieval Studies (York, 2002-5). External for recent PhDs at Cardiff, King's College London, Royal Holloway London, Bristol.

• Lansdowne Visiting Professor, Department of English, University of Victoria, Canada (Spring 2000)

Research interests

My major interests are: Chaucer; fourteenth-century English literature; the history and context of medieval debate about women in vernacular and Latin writings; and European medieval romance. Following recent publication on ethical traditions in Chaucer, I am preparing a book on 'shame' in medieval English writings. I have a subsidiary interest in medieval iconography. Engagements for conference papers in the last few years have included Siena, Cardiff, London, Limoges, Swansea, and New York.

Selected publications

• (2010) 'Medieval Individuality' in Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature, ed. Elaine Treharne and Greg Walker (Oxford University Press), pp. 478-95.
• (2010) 'Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde' in Companion to Medieval Poetry, ed. Corinne Saunders (Blackwell), pp. 435-51. 
• (2010) 'May in January's Tree: Genealogical Space in The Merchant's Tale', Chaucer Review, 45, pp. 106-117.
  
• (2007) 'Philosophical Sleaze? The "strok of thought" in The Miller's Tale and Chaucerian Fabliau', Modern Language Review, 102, pp. 621-40.
• (2006) Chaucer, Ethics, and Gender (Oxford University Press).
• (2005) 'Sexuality' in Chaucer: An Oxford Guide, ed. Steve Ellis (Oxford University Press), pp. 208-23.
• (2005) 'Women and Creative Intelligence in Medieval Thought' in Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Linda Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (University of Notre Dame Press), pp. 213-30.
• (2004) 'The Twin Demons of Aristocratic Society in Sir Gowther' in Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance, ed. Nicola McDonald (Manchester University Press), pp. 45-62.
• (2002) The 'Romance of the Rose' Illuminated: Manuscripts at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, with G.C. Holian (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2002).
• (1997) The Case for Women in Medieval Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
• (1992) Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Clarendon Press), main editor.