Current Students

Hannah Piercy

My PhD project examines representations of desire and lack of desire in medieval romance literature. Focusing on insular romance, mostly written in Middle English between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, I consider the dynamics of rejecting and accepting love in medieval romance. In particular, I have a special interest in characters who reject suitors, and how implied attitudes towards these characters differ (or remain the same) according to their gender. While recent work on medieval romance has considered the agency associated with desire in this genre, my research examines characters who are undesiring, in order to further understand concepts of gender, courtship, marriage, and family – not just in the medieval period, but also today.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?mode=staff&id=15901

http://durham.academia.edu/HannahPiercy

Supervisory Team: Prof. Corinne Saunders, English Studies (Durham), Prof. Elizabeth Archibald, English Studies (Durham).

Start Date: October 2016.