We are thrilled to welcome to the 2024 Colloquium our two plenary lectures. 

 

 
Brinley Rhys Memorial Lecture

Dr. Marion Turner (The University of Oxford)

Marion Turner is the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at Lady Margaret Hall. She works mainly on Chaucer and other secular late-medieval literature and has interests in biography, in critical theory, in literature and medicine, in gender, and in the place of the medieval in modern imaginations. Her 2019 prize-winning biography of Chaucer (Chaucer: A European Life, Princeton University Press) has been recognized by a host of academic and mainstream awards, including the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawhay Prize and the Medieval Institute's Otto Grundler Prize. Her most recent work, The Wife of Bath: A Biography was recently published by Princeton University Press and offers an experimental biography of a literary character across time, situating Alison of Bath in both medieval and modern contexts.

 
Edward King Memorial Lecture

Dr. Kristina Richardson (The University of Virginia)

Kristina Richardson is the John L. Nau III Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy, Professor of History and Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures. Her research focuses on premodern non-elite Arab history, particularly people with disabilities, users of sign language, Romani groups (ghurabā'), craftspeople, and enslaved laborers and entertainers. Her latest book, Roma in the Medieval and Islamic World (I.B. Tauris, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Dan David Prize and the 2023 Monica H. Green Prize from the Medieval Academy of America. She is currently at work on a new monograph, entitled Black Basra: Race, Labor, and Piety in Early Islamic History. This research presents a history of the port city of Basra from its fouonding in 637 until c. 1000 CE, centering the lives and experiences of free and unfree black people (al-sūdān).