Author Archives: Brandon W. Hawk
Dragons in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
It’s no secret that many people who love the Middle Ages also love dragons. We find dragons in literature like the Old English poem Beowulf, Norse sagas, saints’ lives, romances, Arthurian legends, even historical chronicles. We also find dragons in modern fantasy literature inspired by medieval culture, like J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Ursula […]
Forthcoming: “Modelling Medieval Hands: Practical OCR for Caroline Minuscule”
A few years ago, I wrote a post about some preliminary experiments I ran using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on medieval manuscripts. Fortunately, after I wrote that up, I had quite a bit of feedback from others who had used OCR with older printed books, and with languages like Latin and Greek. At one […]
Forthcoming: “A History of the Study of Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England”
I’m pleased to say that I have an article forthcoming in the December issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion, titled “A History of the Study of Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England.” I was invited to submit this contribution because of the publication of my recent book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. In my article […]
Prefaces to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and Nativity of Mary
It’s International Translation Day! Not coincidentally, September 30 is also the feast day of Saint Jerome (347-420), who translated the Bible into Latin (known as the Vulgate), as it was known for hundreds of years in medieval Western Europe. Jerome is also the patron saint of translators because of his reputation. Jerome’s legacy as a […]
Auerbach: Against Nationalism
This week in my graduate seminar (for new MA students), as an introduction to literary criticism and theory, we’re reading Erich Auerbach‘s “Odysseus’ Scar,” the first chapter of his book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946; translated into English in 1953). At the same time, I’ve been working recently on an article engaging […]
CFP: Putting Women in the Pulpit: A Roundtable about Women and Preaching
CFP: Putting Women in the Pulpit: A Roundtable about Women and Preaching Sponsored by the Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), May 9-12, 2019 For over ten years at the ICMS, the Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics (SSASH) has […]
Preaching Apocrypha: Postscript
[This post is part 3 in a series of reflections about my book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England (order here); read part 1 here and part 2 here.] As discussed in my previous posts about Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England, I’ve been thinking about the project that has become this book for over 9 years. In that time, my ideas and […]
Preaching Apocrypha: Revisions
[This post is part 2 in a series of reflections about my book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England (order here); read part 1 here and part 3 here.] After I finished my PhD, settled into my first job, and started revising my dissertation into a book, I pulled out all of the comments I had received from […]
Preaching Apocrypha: Beginnings
[This post is part 1 in a series of reflections about my book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England (order here); read part 2 here and part 3 here.] My book Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England will be out from the University of Toronto Press in July (pre-order at that link for 25% off!), so lately I’ve been thinking about the project as […]
The Afterlife of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew Preview
This post is essentially a teaser for my upcoming presentation at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo next week. I’ll be presenting a paper titled “The Afterlife of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew” on session 41, “The Scripturesque Middle Ages: Uses/Reception of Apocrypha along the Medieval North Sea,” organized by Stephen Hopkins, in Sangren 1320, […]
