Alicia Smith

It probably depends a bit on time of day and busyness, there can be a bit of queueing for security, but to be honest an hour is likely to be fine in my recent experience - both times I did it last summer we did not board until about 10 mins before departure.

Our first session of Saints Outside Hagiography is today! @lgisseleire.bsky.social on mortuary rolls and me on the Throckmorton prayer roll. Excited to get started!

Review: Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement » Thinking Faith Network "You are correct: something is seriously wrong." This manifesto is an urgent call to arms about the capacity of human attention and what is threatening it today.

I wrote a brief review for Thinking Faith Network of a new book I found really invigorating and urgent - highly recommended 🌀
thinkfaith.net/2026/02/18/r...

Students had it tough during the worst of covid. But their education continued and they were able to get their degrees, despite a global pandemic and dysfunctional government. Like 1000s of colleagues, I worked way over the odds, while dealing with domestic pressures. This action feels very cruel.

#medievalsky does anyone know if there are any texts (biblical, medieval, or anything in between) about whether Judas was thought to have been born before Jesus, or the other way around? Grateful for any advice!

Elizabeth Knox An analysis and discussion of the contemporary fantasy writer Elizabeth Know, by Dr Alicia Smith.

Talking about postcolonial literature and magic with my Masters class this week has me thinking back to my brief (as in, one-off!) pandemic-era venture into podcasting - if you don't know Elizabeth Knox's work and you're at all interested in SFF, worth a listen!
podcasts.ox.ac.uk/elizabeth-knox

Stone memorial to the saint in St Mary's Churchyard, Whitby, showing Cædmon clutching a lyre as an angel touches it.

Feb 11: Feast of Cædmon (†680), monk of Streanæshalch (Whitby). Cowherd who, in his advanced years, was divinely endowed with a gift for poetry and song. Bede says the scriptures were interpreted for him and he would create religious compositions beyond compare. #medievalsky

(If you're interested in harlot saints / medieval depictions of sex work, male/female pastoral relationships, hagiography etc, and would like to read the article but don't have institutional access, feel free to get in touch!)

A lovely email to receive first thing on a Monday: my article 'Poet-Bishop and Harlot Saint: Marbod of Rennes's Life of Thais in Context' was selected as Feminae's Article of the Month! inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/Arti...

Look what arrived today, or at least the ebook did. This is the first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to medieval women’s writing globally,focusing on the thousand-year period between 500-1500. Entries on about 250 women writers plus longer thematic essays. You’re welcome.

Hi Sara, if you email me and Laura M (addresses on the image / alt text) we can put you on the mailing list to get the readings and zoom links 🙂

Featuring @hopesteffen.bsky.social @hdohertyharrison.bsky.social @lgisseleire.bsky.social among others!

Announcement: Saints Outside Hagiography Winter-Spring Series 2026 Where do saints appear outside the classic genre of the hagiography? How do they show up in art, literature, teaching texts, and everyday religious practices? This group brings together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture, to explore how they are constructed in forms other than the single-text hagiography or ‘sacred biography’. In our online workshop sessions, we discuss two pre-circulated short excerpts from historical sources, briefly presented by scholars working on them. Friday March 6 – Saints on a Roll (or Two) Alicia Smith: Reclusive Saints as Models on the Throckmorton Layman’s Prayer Roll Laura Gisseleire: The Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham Friday March 27 – Saints in Images and Murals Marianne Kupin-Lisbin: The Miraculous St Mary of Olovo Maia Man-Abramiuc: The Transylvanian Mural of St Margaret Friday April 24 – Representations of Saints in Prayers Jenny Bledsoe: Prayers to Quiricus and Julitta in the Medieval Birth Girdle Tradition Iliana Kandzha: A Prayer to St Apollonia from De Speghel der Sammiticheyt Friday May 15 – Saints in Unlikely Places Fawaz Abdul Salam: The Sultan as a Saintly Figure in Early Ottoman Poetry Heather Blurton: William of Norwich Keystone in Girona, Spain Friday June 26 – Saints in Annals and Anti-Hagiographies Hope Doherty-Harrison: Extracts from Biographies of Judas Steffen Hope: Annalistic Hagiography? The Case of Margareta of Roskilde Friday July 31 – Saints in Teaching Texts and Epigraphs Mary Channen Caldwell: St Nicholas in the Musical Hand Kshitij Jain: Monastic Figures and Sacred Places in Jain Ritual Texts All meetings take place on Zoom, at 4pm-5:30pm CET / 3pm-4:30pm GMT / 10am-11:30am EST unless otherwise indicated. If you would like to attend these sessions, please email Laura Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) or Alicia Smith (alicia.smith@uib.no).

Saints Outside Hagiography starts next month! A new workshop-style series, discussing work in progress on saints in unusual sources. Come and join us ❤️‍🔥 drive.google.com/file/d/1-BPc...

Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2026: Whose Middle Ages? When: 27 March 2026, 10:00 — 17:00 Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square Book your place The Middle Ages are all around us. As the philosopher, medievalist and novelist Umberto Eco pointed out 30 years ago, 'before rejoicing or grieving over a return of the Middle Ages, we have the moral and cultural duty of spelling out what kind of Middle Ages we are talking about'. Since then, we have seen a diversification of scholarly approaches to the Middle Ages, including global and decolonial approaches. But how have these academic discussions related to discussions and representations of the Middle Ages in the wider culture? At the 2026 Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, join us for a day of discussion about the claims that are placed upon the Middle Ages, in poetry, art and the wider culture. Taking up the question asked by Andrew Albin et al. in their 2019 book, Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments in an Ill-Used Past, Birkbeck's Dr Daniel Sawyer and Dr Nick Evans will be joined by Dr Rebecca Menmuir (University of Oxford), Dr Olenka Pevny (University of Cambridge) and Dr George Bartlett (Courtauld) to assess the continued power of ideas from and about the Middle Ages in contemporary culture. Full programme to follow.

And later this term, we'll be hosting ‘Whose Middle Ages?’, the Annual Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, with Daniel Sawyer, Rebecca Menmuir, Olenka Pevny, George Bartlett. More information about the event and booking here: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...
www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

This is fundamentally shite of Google, and it's a good moment to recall that archive.org holds about 900K public-domain books originally digitised by Google, and that IA's metadata may be lousy but their search is good.

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

Check out the CFP for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference in Oxford in Sept! Theme is ✨GENDER & CREATIVITY✨ Conf generously support by University College, Oxford; the John Fell Fund (Oxford University); the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship; the GMS group; & @guildmedmak.bsky.social

Screenshot with a banner text 'The hermit's best-seller' in pink and 'The only surviving original version of one of late medieval England's most popular works of literature reveals its secrets' in white on black background and a medieval painting of two men. Below the banner is an image of Dr Glover on the right and text 'Parker Library Research Fellow reveals the secrets of one of England's most popular works of medieval literature' on the left.

Exciting news for fans of Richard Rolle of the 'The Fire of Love' fame ❤️‍🔥

Dr Timothy Glover, recently Parker Library Early-Career Research Fellow, has made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery that brings us closer to the beloved mystic, hermit and author Richard Rolle (d.1349)

tinyurl.com/e3266str

I like the point here that anchoresses (and anchorites too, but maybe particularly the women?) seem to have a special quality of confusing, and I'd say even upsetting, modern people - demanding we reflect on our own perspective / assumptions about life.

The deadline for expressions of interest is approaching (15 Jan) - please do consider getting in touch!

PhD Studentship - Flooded Futures: Exploring Sci-Fi Imaginings to Develop Future Flood Resilient Communities at University of Hull Explore a PhD Studentship - Flooded Futures: Exploring Sci-Fi Imaginings to Develop Future Flood Resilient Communities. Apply today and discover more PhD opportunities at jobs.ac.uk.

Interesting PhD opportunity! Flood stories are some of the climate-related scifi that stayed with me the most from childhood - 'Exodus' by Julie Bertagna, 'The Kraken Wakes' by John Wyndham (where sea levels rise because of creatures in the deep, rather than global warming, but still relevant...)

Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Another call for abstracts for our sessions at the UArctic Congress in May. It's on the Faroe Islands and I'm really excited!
Deadline for abstracts 15/12/25
medieval.ox.ac.uk/uarctic-cong...

Laura Moncion and I are organising an online workshop series and we want to know about your work in progress on relics, sermons, liturgies, tokens, monuments and more... Submit a proposal by the 15th Jan 2026 to get involved.

New Workshop Series: Call for Participants Saints Outside Hagiography We invite expressions of interest to participate in a new series of online workshops examining how saints and holy people are represented outside the classic form of the single-text hagiography, what Thomas J. Heffernan calls the ‘sacred biography’. This group aims to bring together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture, to explore how they are constructed in other forms—poetry, visual art, sermons, letters, monuments, drama, chronicles, liturgy, objects, didactic literature, and others—in an informal, work-in-progress format focused on discussion of primary sources from any historical period. We envision each meeting consisting of 1-2 brief presentations, with the text or object and a short description or summary (max 500 words) circulated in advance along with one or two questions for discussion. If you have a historical source or item related to sanctity that you would like to bring to an interdisciplinary forum, please get in touch with Laura Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) and Alicia Smith (alicia.smith@uib.no) by 15 January 2026 with a brief description, your career stage and institutional affiliation if any. Guidelines: • The chronological and geographical scope is intentionally open. We are happy to receive proposals that argue for definitions of saint / sanctity outside the mainstream. • Speakers are free to contest whether a text is ‘outside hagiography’ or ‘not a classic hagiography’—the goal is to study saints and the construction of saint/sanctity beyond canonical textual forms, including troubling our understanding of those forms. • If your source is not in English, you will need to include an English translation.

Calling anyone interested in saints, sanctity, and the weird and wonderful world of primary sources outside the conventional hagiography form! ❤️‍🔥

"What is easier than reading a book? Not reading a book. What is easier than writing code? Not writing code. What is easier than solving an equation? Not solving an equation. What is easier than having a single independent and original thought? Well, I’m sure you get it by now."

See the whole series here linktr.ee/stagingthemi...

And a write up of last year's event here! www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/par...

I'm excited to speak at this week's instalment of the 'Staging the Middle Ages' project in Cambridge - Fri 24th Oct 5:30pm - reflecting on what I learned from the reading of 'The Conversion of the Harlot Thais' which I hosted last year @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/session-2-...

Oh agreed...

A fountain built into a flight of steps in Bergen, Norway

A detail of a medieval manuscript initial Q with Thais depicted inside, in an elaborate dress, with a long-necked bird at her feet.

I've been in Bergen for a couple of weeks now, getting used to a new city and new institution. It's really exciting to have two years in front of me for research! I'll be digging further into the figure of Thais in medieval culture, & thinking through modern responses (and responsibilities) to her.