Winners, Wasters, and the Shadow of Envy: Theories of Justice and the Scene of Medieval Literature
Is envy at the root of all claims for justice (so says Freud), or is envy a regrettable but surmountable human tendency that will be minimized in a just society (as Rawls has it)?
Exploring the world of colourful medieval cuisine
Colour often has a great influence on how we perceive the food we eat. It can make food appear more appetising, or even warn that something is wrong. This was just as true for diners in the Middle Ages as it is for modern consumers.
Wonder and Scepticism in the Long Twelfth Century
This dissertation proposes that wonder is an initial emotional reaction to a novel phenomenon, and that scepticism, a form of cognition, necessarily follows when the phenomenon is sufficiently bizarre, or out of coherence with one’s prior experience.
The Heart of Dread: A Case Study of Fear in Old Norse Culture
The misplaced idea of the Middle Ages as a period of unmediated emotion is still popular. Yet, by studying both textual and material culture from the period, recent scholarship in the history of emotions has proved that this is not the case.
The Fine Line Between Courage and Fear in Procopius’s Vandal War
The emotion of ‘fear takes center stage in the Vandal War by Procopius. Recent scholarship has underlined Procopius’s stress on the febrile anxiety that gripped Constantinople when the Emperor Justinian announced his military expedition to recover the former Roman provinces of North Africa from the Vandals.