Louise Campion
Profile
I completed my undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, and went on to read for an MSt in English Language and Literature, 650-1550, at the University of Oxford. I returned to Warwick in 2015 to undertake my PhD in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, under the supervision of Prof. Christiania Whitehead. For 2019, I am an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick.
Research
My research examines fifteenth-century Middle English religious literature, much of which was translated from earlier Latin sources. I am interested in the alterations made by the late medieval translators of these Latin source texts. My doctoral thesis explores the prevalence of domestic imagery in fifteenth-century religious literature by examining four Middle English translations of earlier Latin texts. These are The Doctrine of the Hert, a guidance text for nuns, Mechtild of Hackeborn's Booke of Gostlye Grace, a collection of visions received by Mecthild, a German mystic, Bridget of Sweden's Liber Celestis, another book of revelations, and Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, a narrative Life of Christ. My research suggested that these texts' repeated recourse to domestic imagery responded to a cultural moment at which the household was developing a particularly strong hold over the imagination. I identified several instances of the domestic language of the earlier Latin texts being amplified for a fifteenth-century readership.
Having submitted my doctoral thesis in April 2019, I am currently working on articles on a fifteenth-century religious lyric, the northern readership of Mechtild of Hackeborn's text, and the excerpting of domestic images in late medieval religious miscellanies.
More broadly, I am interested in fifteenth-century religious cultures in England and Europe, late medieval translation practices, and female readers of late medieval religious literature.
Conference Presentations
Forthcoming:
‘The Domesticated Nativity of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christand Book to a Mother’. International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, forthcoming 2ndJuly 2019.
I have presented papers at the following conferences:
‘Going Home with Bridget of Sweden: Seeking the Saint’s Distinctive Voice in the Middle English Liber Celestis’. Research Day in Medieval English Studies, University of Lausanne, 13thOctober 2017.
‘Inhabiting the Text: The Significance of the Imagery of Household Space in Mechtild of Hackeborn’s Booke of Gostlye Grace’. Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon, University of Bergen, 22nd-24thJune 2017. Attendance funded by a University of Warwick English Department Graduate Travel Award.
‘At Home with Christ: The Domesticated Jesus of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ’. Architectural Representation in the Middle Ages, University of Oxford, 7th-8thApril 2017.
‘Shopping or Scrimping? The Contested Space of the Household in Middle English Devotional Literature’. Gender and Medieval Studies: Gender, Places, Spaces, Thresholds, Canterbury Christ Church University, 12th-15thJanuary 2017.
‘Becoming “homely” with Christ: Images of Domesticity in Medieval Devotional Literature’. Research Day in Medieval English Studies, University of Padua, 28thOctober 2016.
‘The Materiality of the Heart in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Misc. 330, and London, British Library, MS Additional 37049’. Medieval Material Matters, University of Warwick, 18thJuly 2016.
‘The Crucifixion in the Kitchen: Disturbing Domesticity in The Doctrine of the Hert and The Booke of Gostlye Grace’. 12th Annual English Department Postgraduate Symposium, University of Warwick, 31stMay 2016.
‘The Crucifixion in the Kitchen: Disturbing Domesticity in The Doctrine of the Hertand The Booke of Gostlye Grace’. The House in the Mind: Architectural Space and the Imagination, University of Oxford, 16th-17th March 2016.
Publications
Book Chapter:
‘Shopping or Scrimping? The Contested Space of the Household in Middle English Devotional Literature’, in Gender: Places, Spaces, and Thresholds, ed. by Diane Heath, Victoria Blud and Einat Klafter (London: Institute of Historical Research, January 2019), pp. 171-183.
Blogpost:
‘Finding Christ in the Kitchen: Making Oneself at Home with Mechtild of Hackeborn’, for the online blog of the Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon research network (open access). www.blogs.surrey.ac.uk/medievalwomen/2017/04/03/finding-christ-in-the-kitchen-making-oneself-at-home-with-mechtild-of-hackeborn/
Organisational Experience
I have been a co-organiser for the Warwick Medieval Seminar Series and Medieval Reading Group. For 2017-2018, I co-convened the Comparative Literature and Religions Reading Group (CoRAL), alongside a colleague from French. I have also organised two workshops on medieval women's writing for students, and a workshop on the interrelation of cannibalism and the Eucharist for students and staff.
Public Engagement
From September-November 2016, I collaborated with colleagues at Warwick and Monash University as part of the Translating Cultures of the Past project.
This collaborative project was established to investigate different ways of presenting research into the historical past. The end result was a series of films, produced by a local Coventry filmmaker, in which researchers from both universities discussed the ways in which their research was pertinent to the present day. These films were then uploaded to YouTube, and advertised on the Medievalists at Warwick webpage. For my film, about female religious practice in the Middle Ages and the present day, I was responsible for contacting a community of Benedictine nuns in Thirsk, Yorkshire. We subsequently visited the convent to conduct a series of interviews with them, which primarily focused on their application of medieval religious literature to their daily spiritual practice.
Louise Campion
L dot G dot E dot Campion at warwick dot ac dot uk