Next week will see lots of medievalists jet off to the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. Sadly I won’t be attending but my partner-in-crime Laura Kalas and I were delighted to have the opportunity to write a blogpost for the Manchester University Press website, introducing our new volume of essays Encountering The Book of Margery Kempe. You can read the post here and there’s a 40% discount available on the volume with the code Med22 via the MUP virtual conference booth.
Laura and I will, however, be attending the New Visions of Julian of Norwich conference in mid July here in Oxford (perhaps not wearing our ‘Team Margery’ badges but you never know!!). Laura is giving a paper on reading pain generatively in Julian’s Revelations and I will be talking about the famous meeting between Margery and Julian, as represented in modern adaptations and what such creative responses might tell us about reading Julian’s text through Margery (in a reversal of the usual dynamic of comparison!) It’ll be a speculative and rather experimental piece, but I’m looking forward to it!
Do pop over to the Margery Kempe Society website too where we have an update on the Society’s activities over the last year, links to our blogpost series (including mine on teaching The Book), and we’re showcasing our new Society logo, produced by our brilliant assistant Emily M Harless! Thanks Emily! We’re looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring!
Dr Laura Varnam 