a medieval modern scrapbook

Gleawe men sceolon gieddum wrixlan

Wise people should exchange words/ speech/ sayings/ poems/ songs/ riddles…

Hello! I’m interested in early medieval poetry, objects, places, and events, and how they are made present in contemporary arts and cultural practices.

I completed my doctoral research, funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP/ AHRC) at King’s College London. My thesis is called ‘Sutton Hoo in public: newspapers, television, and museums’. As the title suggests, I look at a host of different archival materials to examine how the ‘Anglo-Saxon past’ has been imagined in mass media and museums from 1939 to the present.

This is where I sporadically collect questions, musings, links, and other things usually related to medieval and Old English language and culture and their modern echoes, counterparts, imaginings, and (re)presentations. I use this site to blog, but also to bookmark useful things, so it’s something of a scrapbook.

Please comment and share your own thoughts or useful links! Or send me links/ say hello via twitter, @francheskyia.

*

What you’ll find here…

Blog – jottings on a range of things that I’m researching and projects I’m involved with.

Now researching…

My thesis focussed on Sutton Hoo and Old English poetry, including Beowulf and the Rune Poem. I also do a lot of thinking about The Seafarer.

Links – here I save other people’s videos, writing, and more, that I’ve found useful for thinking about the medieval as it exists today.

Digital Medieval Texts – manuscript scans, or basic text-based Old English/ translations.

Not writing – here I store all the ‘not writing’ elements of projects I’ve been lucky enough to take part in… all of the visual, audio, multimedia stuff I’ve generated alongside research!

*

I also used to (and perhaps will do again some day) make a podcast called ‘Footnotes’ with another medievalist. Our modest aim was to talk to researchers about the interesting things they dig up in their work. Have a listen, or get in touch if you’d like to be a guest!