Registration is now open for this year’s Gender and Medieval Studies Conference is on Gender and Mobility. This year it is a free virtual conference, hosted by the University of Surrey, taking place on 11th-13th January. We have three plenary speakers: Professor Liz Herbert McAvoy (Swansea University) Dr Rachel Moss (University of Northampton) Dr Mine […]
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by Shazia Jagot, University of York In the series finale of the American sitcom, The Good Place, the redeemed demon, Michael (played by the effortless Ted Danson) reels off a list of historic personages newly admitted to the paradisial afterlife: Roberto Clemente, Zora Neale Hurston, St Thomas Aquinas, Hazrat Bibi Rabia Basri, Clara Peller. The […]
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by Maria Zygogianni, Swansea University On April 25th, Lambeth Council closed Brockwell Park for the day after approximately 3000 people visited the park the day before, ignoring guidelines for social distancing. Their message was made clear in a warning tweet: if residents don’t comply, they will be kicked out of the park. This tweet would […]
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Justin M. Byron-Davies and Ko Jeong-hee In the early decades of Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) a young woman who was renowned for her exceptional beauty, wit and keen intellect wrote the following reproof in verse to an eminent contemporary Neo-Confucian scholar: ‘What cause did I give you / To expect me to appear? / I […]
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Spice Cellar in the Shape of a Ship (c.1400) Walters Art Museum [Public domain: Wikimedia Commons ] by Vicki Kay, Bangor University In a letter dated November 5th, 1471, Margaret Paston forcefully wrote to her son John Paston (III), ‘I shall send yw money to by such stufe as I wull haue.’ It seems […]
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