Dr Karen Smyth
| Job Title | Contact | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Lecturer in Medieval/Early Modern Lit |
K dot Smyth at uea dot ac dot uk
Tel: +44 (0)1603 59 2276 |
Arts Building 2.46 |
Biography
Karen Smyth joined the University of East Anglia in 2007 as Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature. Her speciality is in Middle English, especially works by Lydgate, Hoccleve and Chaucer. Ideas of time in literature was her first field of study and now she is increasingly interested in anything related to literary traditions of medieval Norfolk, which includes the networks of patrons, readers, authors, performances, visual icons, zodiacal mappings and relationships between poetry and architecture.
Prior to taking up the lectureship at UEA, Karen held a lectureship in Old and Middle English at the University of Nottingham, after being the Bloomfield Visiting Fellow at Harvard. She gained her PhD in medieval studies, PCGHE and BA(hons) in English language and literature at the Queen’s University of Belfast.
Key Research Interests
My research focuses on late medieval literature and culture, with a particular emphasis on time and, more recently, regional cultures. I search for new ways to read familiar material, or for unfamiliar material to be newly read, which often results in me drawing on connections across disciplines.
My first book, Imaginings of Time in Lydgate and Hoccleve’s Verse, for example provides an overview of medieval time-keeping devices and considers computist manuals, social, historical, political, architectural, visual and literary sources, identifying competitions of tradition and innovation, allowing for an interrogation of commonly accepted medieval theories of time. An empirically based morphology emerges and is used to examine narratives of time in some of Lydgate and Hoccleve's best known works in conjunction with readings of their minor poems. I’ve also co-edited an interdisciplinary volume of essays, Medieval Lifecycles: Continuity and Change, with the historian Isabelle Cochelin. A number of journal articles consider the study of time in other texts, including those of Chaucer. Consequently, I have acted as an advisor on a public exhibition of Time Machines for Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science.
More recently, I have turned my attention to regional cultures, specifically all things related to medieval East Anglia. This ranges from experimenting with newly emerging life writing forms in a study of John Lydgate and the reception of his work, to exploring connections between the figurative linguistic styles of Norfolk women writers and the iconography in the region. I also have interests in the rich tradition of medieval street pageantry in Norwich (of which many remnants remain in the city’s Lord Mayor’s procession and carnivals today). As a result, I am a member of an advisory group (Norfolk branch) on a National Lottery Heritage funded project on the Carnival in East Anglia. We will collect and digitise archives relating to the rich history of street celebrations and carnivals, so they can be accessed via a central website. Workshops, conferences, learning sessions, exhibitions and self-led projects are planned. An aim is also to create opportunities for students to both gain work experience and engage in research of the history of processions and street pageantry in the East of England (particularly Norwich) from the medieval to the present day (if interested please get in contact).
PhD and MA Research Proposals:
I am happy to supervise PhD and MA projects on:
- medieval literature
- interperiodic study of time in literature
- I co-supervise creative-critical, history and art history projects
Projects that I am supervising, or have to date, include:
Medieval literature: Emotions in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations; Manuscript Miscellanies in the Paston-Calle-Falstoff Network; The Bible as Literature; Life of St Katherine; Ideas of Space in Anchorite Texts; Identity and the Paston family.
Joint projects with History - Sound and Music of the Apocalypse; with Art History - The Cult of St Edmund in East Anglia; and Creative-critical projects - The Life of Harold Godwinson; The Holy Grail
For more details of PhD and MA research opportunities with the medieval and early modern research cluster at UEA, see:http://sites.google.com/site/ueamamedievalearlymodern/
Teaching Interests
- * MA ‘East Anglian Literature’
- Level 3 ‘Early English Drama’
- Level 3 ‘Medieval Arthurian Traditions’
- Level 2 ‘Medieval Writing’
- Level 2 ‘Visual and Verbal in Medieval Culture’
- Level 1 ‘Reading Texts 1’
- Level 1: ‘Reading Texts 2’
* For more details on UEA’s innovative MA in medieval and early modern literature course, see:
http://sites.google.com/site/ueamamedievalearlymodern/
Article
Smyth, Karen (2009) Enhancing the Agency of a Listener: Reception Theory in a Chaucer Lecture. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 33(2). pp. 131-40. ISSN 0309-877X
Smyth, Karen (2008) The Subtext of Astrology and other Temporal Patternings in John Lydgate's Theban History. Mediaevalia, 29. pp. 137-56.
Smyth, Karen (2007) Reassessing Chaucer's Cosmological Discourse in Troilus and Criseyde. Fifteenth Century Studies, 32. pp. 150-63.
Smyth, Karen (2006) Reading Misreadings in Thomas Hoccleve's Series. English Studies, 87 (1). pp. 3-22. ISSN 0013-838X
Smyth, Karen (2004) Changing Times in the Cultural Discourse of Late Medieval England. Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 35. pp. 435-54.
Smyth, Karen (2004) The Benefits of Students Learning Critical Evaluation Skills. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education.
Book Section
Smyth, Karen (2012) Imagining Age in the Fifteenth Century: Nation, Everyman and the Self. In: Medieval Lifecycles: Continuities and Change. Brepols. (In Press)
Smyth, Karen (2003) The Significance of Time Referents in John Lydgate's Work. In: Time and Eternity: The Medieval Discourse. Brepols, pp. 363-372. ISBN 2-503-51312-3
Book
Smyth, Karen and Cochelin, Isabelle, eds. (2012) Medieval Lifecycles: Continuity and Change. International Medieval Research Series, 18 . Brepols. (In Press)
Smyth, Karen (2011) Imaginings of Time in Lydgate and Hoccleve's Verse. Ashgate. ISBN 9781409406310
Other
Smyth, Karen (2003) Biography of Hildegard von Bingen (in Women's Arts News). Women’s Studio Center, New York.
Smyth, Karen (2003) Film Focus: The Making of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Channel 4 Learning.
Smyth, Karen (2003) Entries on 'John Gower'; 'Thomas Malory'; 'Morte D'arthur'; 'William Dunbar'; 'Robert Henryson'; and 'John Skelton' (2003-2008, in The Literary Encyclopedia). UNSPECIFIED.
External Activities and Indicators of Esteem
- PROJECTS
- Digital Archive of Carnival in East Anglia’, member of advisory panel, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, V&A and Welcome Trust, 2011–13
- Advisor for a public exhibition on Time Machines for Oxford’s History of the Museum of Science, 2010–11
- GRANTS
- Community University Engagement East grant, 2011
- SRF grant, 2010
- UK Bibliographical Society grant, 2008
- British Academy Research grant, 2007
- English Subject Centre grant, 2005
- Morton Bloomfield Visiting Fellowship, Harvard University, USA, (Barker Center), 2004
- Medieval Academy of America travel grant to State University of New York, Binghamton, 2004
- POSTS
- Peer Reviewer for The Chaucer Review and The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures
- Consultant for HEFCE’s ‘Involving Disabled People in Higher Education’
Key Responsibilities
- Q300 Course Director (f/t and p/t programme), 2008-ongoing
- LDC’s Equal Opportunities Officer, 2009-ongoing
- Personal Advisor, 2007-ongoing
- Medieval and Early Modern postgraduate and faculty website’s facilitator:
http://sites.google.com/site/ueamamedievalearlymodern/ - Deputy Plagiarism Officer, 2011
- LDC’s Disability Officer, 2008-10
- Q200 Course Director, 2009
