Like many other medievalists, this past weekend I attended the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. While there, I was privileged to present on a special session titled "Source Study: A Retrospective," sponsored by the Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (my thanks to Ben Weber for organizing and for including me). I was … Continue reading Source Study in a Digital Age
This academic year was Year One after my PhD, which I defended early last August, just in time to move for a teaching postdoc in English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My year at UTK has been filled with great experiences and opportunities, so as the spring semester (and the academic year) comes to an end, I'm reflecting on it … Continue reading Reflections on My Postdoc Year
Pseudo-Marcellus Passio Petri et Pauli in Modern Printed Edition and Weissenburg 48. [Edit: Interested in more about OCR with medieval manuscripts? Check out this more recent post.] Introduction Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software has increasingly been a part of scholarship, particularly in digital humanities. For example, it is fundamental to the Google Books project (which … Continue reading OCR and Medieval Manuscripts: Establishing a Baseline
By now, the news of the Anglo-Saxon recipe that kills modern day superbug MRSA is old (find a good article on it here). When news hit the internet a few weeks ago, my social media was buzzing with medievalists proud to point out the relevance of our work. I first found out about it because Judy (my … Continue reading Teaching Anglo-Saxon Science
Something wonderful is happening on Twitter. Of course, that could be said of various trends on that social media outlet, but one that's striking early academics right now is the #RhymeYourPhD trend. Liesbeth Corens brought the idea to life over the weekend: Now I want 'Rhyme your PhD' like 'dance your PhD'. Could be part of our 'creative … Continue reading #RhymeYourPhD
This time of year, holiday symbols surround us on all sides. Some of these are fairly recent phenomena, like Santa Claus (a twentieth-century creation in his popular culture incarnation), electric lights, and decorated fir trees in many homes; some are much older, like Hanukkah menorahs and Nativity scenes. Among those associated with Christmas are a few that particularly … Continue reading An Ox, an Ass, and Three Kings: A History of Apocryphal Christmas Traditions
This semester I had the pleasure of teaching a graduate seminar on "The History of the English Language" (from beginnings up to the early modern period), and it has led me to all sorts of useful reflections on language and history. Foremost, I have my students to thank for such an exciting and engaging seminar--and next semester I get … Continue reading What Have Manuscripts to Do with HEL?
This summer, I've been creating a syllabus and preparing for one of the courses that I'm teaching this fall, World Literature I: Ancient through Early Modern. The syllabus can be found here, and I've decided to use the The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Package 1: Beginnings to 1650 (vols. A, B, C), since it has great breadth … Continue reading First-Day Catullus
Some time back, I noticed that quite a few people who came across my work found it because they were searching for a translation of Ælfric of Eynsham's Preface to Genesis (about which I've written an article in English Studies). I did some searching of my own, and found that there are not many translations of the … Continue reading Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis: A Translation
Over the last several weeks, I've been reading the long-awaited, recently published Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (CT). Of course, the internet has been abuzz about this release for quite a while, and reviews have shown up here and there. I decided early in my reading that … Continue reading Review of Tolkien’s Beowulf
Brandon W. Hawk 