2025 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference

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To attend this conference, please register here.

Download the programme here.

OMGC 2025 Committee:
Emma Cameron, Ashley Castelino, Kate McKee, Zofia Lisowska, Joshua MacRae, Ryan Mealiffe, Eugenia Vorobeva

Day 1: Thursday 24 April

9:00-9:30        Registration

Opening Remarks

9:30-11:30      Session 1: Saints and Staging

Isadora Martins Fontoura de Carvalho, "Sacred water and martyrdom: Towards an interdisciplinary approach on the celebration of Saint Marina in the village of Augas Santas" (University of Santiago de Compostela)

Anna MacDonald, "From Ritual Murder to Ritual Economy: Constructing the Cult of William of Norwich" (alumna Edinburgh)

Clare Whitton, "Garlanded priests, a pig, and the blood of San Gennaro: The Festa dell'Inghirlandati in Medieval Naples" (Oxford)

Simone Kügeler-Race, "Recording Ritual, Representation and Performance: The Passion Play in the Manuscript Matrix of Codex Donaueschingen 137 (Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Codex Donaueschingen 137, c. 1470-1500)" (Cambridge)

11:30-11:45    Refreshment break

11:45-1:15      Session 2: Eating and Abstinence

Isabel Hedgecock, "'Omne temporus ieiunii constitutum est': a literary analysis of Wulfstan of York's De ieiunio quattuor temporum" (York)

Caitlin Kelly, "Hungry Eyes: The Art of (Not) Eating in Late Medieval English Literature" (Oxford)

Arsany Paul, "Domestic Eucharistic Rituals: Partaking of the Eucharist in Private Spaces among the Copts through the Middle Ages" (University of Notre Dame)

1:15-2:30        Lunch

2:30-4:00        Session 3: Relics, Textiles, and Amulets

Rachel Maxey, "Becoming 'Heavenly-Minded': The Use of Amulets for Angel Invocation in the Middle Ages" (Oxford)

Janine Weingärtner, "The Seamless Robe of Christ and the Epic Poem of Orendel: Rituals of Relic Veneration and Narrative Agency" (KCL)

Tracey Davison, "Skeuomorphic Textiles as Devotional Objects in the Early Churches of Rome" (York)

4:00-4:15        Refreshment break

4:15-5:15        Keynote Address: Dr. Helen Gittos, "Christianity before Conversion" (Oxford)

Day 2: Friday 25 April

9:30-11:30      Session 4: Death, Grief, and the Afterlife

Isla Defty, "Going mad as a grief ritual in Sir Orfeo and Partonope of Blois: The highly structured nature of madness in Middle English romances" (alumna Leeds)

Emilie Badoux, "Teaching Funeral Rites in the Auchinleck Life of Adam and Eve: A Family Matter" (Oxford)

Caitriona Dowden, "Processions in Paradise: Imaginary rituals in medieval visions of the afterlife" (Oxford)

Divya Sharma, "Ritualizing Laments and Lamenting Rituals: A Glance Back" (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur)

11:30-11:45    Refreshment break

11:45-1:15      Session 5: Rituals of the Body

Charlotte Stobart, "Making and Unmaking Disabled Bodies: Rituals and Disability in Viking Age Scandinavia" (Manchester)

Celeste van Gent, "Rituals of healing: Injury and the medical practice of later medieval soldiers" (Oxford)

Willa Stonecipher, "Genuflection in Medieval England: Ritual an Osteoarchaeological Interpretationin Monastic Populations" (Oxford)

1:15-2:30        Lunch

2:30-4:00        Session 6: Rites of Passage

Zachary Young, "The Rite of Degradation as a Locus of Theological Elaboration" (University of Florida)

Bastien Paulin Verdier, "Rituals and Ceremonies Attached to sénéchaux and sergents féodés offices in Brittany (13th to 15th centuries)" (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Kaiyue Zhang, "The Crossroad for Liberty: The four-road Ritual and the Manumission Ceremony in Lombard Italy" (Oxford)

4:00-4:15        Refreshment break

4:15-5:15        Keynote Address: Prof. Aleks Pluskowski, "Reaching for the Otherworld: Ritual and Religious Practice After the Baltic Crusades" (Reading)

5:15                 Closing Remarks

Saturday 26 April

12:00-5:00 Oxford Medieval Mystery Cycle (St Edmund Hall)