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Email: s.irvine@ucl.ac.uk |  |
Education and Experience
Susan Irvine was educated at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and at the University of Oxford. Since 1992 she has been teaching in the Department of English at 香港六合彩, where she is now Quain Professor of English Language and Literature.
Her main area of interest is Old English prose and poetry, which she teaches both at undergraduate level and at graduate level on the MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She has also supervised research students on a wide range of topics in this area, including the prose of King Alfred鈥檚 reign, biblical narratives and Beowulf.
She was Director of Old English for the AHRB-funded research database Fontes Anglo-Saxonici project, and Co-Director of the AHRC-funded Old English Boethius project. She was a visiting professor at the Universit脿 di Roma Tre in 2009 and in 2019.
She served a three-year term as Head of the English Department at 香港六合彩. She has served on a number of senior committees in the College.
She has been an external examiner at a number of institutions, including Cambridge, Leeds, Royal Holloway London, St Andrew鈥檚, University College Dublin and York.
She was Second Vice-President of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists from 2012 to 2017. She is currently President of TOEBI (the society for the Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland).
She is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Anglia and for the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series based at the University of Harvard.听She is also a member of the Council of the Early English Text Society, and of the International Advisory Committee for the Dictionary of Old English based at the University of Toronto.
She was awarded a five-year Anneliese Maier Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2015-20).
She proposed and ran three 香港六合彩 Futures-funded events on the theme of 鈥楲iterature Seen, Heard and Spoken鈥�, which aimed to connect 香港六合彩 with the wider community through an exploration of the interdisciplinary possibilities of literature.听
Research Interests
Susan Irvine has written extensively on Old English literature and language. She has published books on twelfth-century homiletic manuscripts, Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Old English Boethius.听
Her research has focused recently on literature associated with King Alfred鈥檚 court at the end of the ninth century. Her co-authored two-volume book entitled The Old English Boethius, published by Oxford University Press, won the 2011 International Society of Anglo-Saxonists鈥� prize for the 鈥楤est Edition published in Anglo-Saxon Studies, 2007-9鈥�. She has also published a new Loeb-style edition of this work, in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series.听
Her current main project is a study and edition (for Oxford University Press) of the prologues and epilogues to Alfredian writings, an intriguing and eclectic set of texts which raise important issues relating to genre, the relationship between authorship and authority, and perceptions of poetic and prose style.
She has recently co-edited a collection of essays on childhood and adolescence in Anglo-Saxon literary culture, published by University of Toronto Press (2018), and a collection of essays on Old English anonymous homilies, published by Brill (2020).
Books
The Anonymous Old English Homily: Sources, Composition, and Variation [co-edited with Winfried Rudolf] (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020)
Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture [co-edited with Winfried Rudolf] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
Uncertain Beginnings: The Prefatory Tradition in Old English (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 2017) [booklet]
The Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues Associated with King Alfred [with Malcolm Godden], Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012)
The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius鈥檚 De Consolatione Philosophiae [with Malcolm Godden], 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle MS E, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004)
Repunctuating Beowulf [with Bruce Mitchell] (Western Michigan University: The Medieval Institute, 2000)
Old English Homilies from MS Bodley 343, Early English Text Society (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Selected Articles and Chapters in Books
鈥樷�淣o sort of meaning in it and yet it was certainly English鈥� (Lewis Carroll): Making Sense of an Old English Scribble in the Royal Psalter鈥�, in Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts, ed. Ursula Lenker and Lucia Kornexl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), pp. 145-60
鈥楾he Protean Form of the Old English Boethius鈥�, in The Legacy of Boethius in Medieval England, ed. Joey McMullen and Erica Weaver (Arizona: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018), pp. 1-17
鈥楩oster-Relationships in the Old English Boethius鈥�, in Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Susan Irvine and Winfried Rudolf (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 202-21
鈥楾he Alfredian Prefaces and Epilogues鈥�, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Nicole Guenther Discenza and Paul E. Szarmach (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 143-70
鈥楾he Anglo-Saxon Chronicle鈥�, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Nicole Guenther Discenza and Paul E. Szarmach (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 344-67
鈥楬anging by a Thread: 脝lfric鈥檚 Saints鈥� Lives and the Hengen鈥�, in Hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England: Adopting and Adapting Saints鈥� Lives into Old English Prose (c. 950-1150), ed. Loredana Lazzari, Patrizia Lendinara and听Claudia Di Sciacca (Barcelona and Madrid: F茅d茅ration Internationale des Instituts d鈥櫭塼udes M茅di茅vales, 2014), pp. 67-94
鈥楨nglish Literature in the Ninth Century鈥�, in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature, ed. C.A. Lees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 209-31
鈥楾he Production of the Peterborough Chronicle鈥�, in Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Language, Literature and History, ed. A. Jorgensen, Studies in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 49-66
鈥極ld English Prose: King Alfred and his Books鈥�, in Beowulf and Other Stories: A New Introduction to Old English and Old Norse Literature, ed. R. North and J. Allard (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2007), pp. 46-71
鈥楤eginnings and Transitions: Old English鈥�, in The Oxford History of English, ed. L. Mugglestone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; paperback edition, 2008), pp. 32-60
鈥楩ragments of Boethius: The Reconstruction of the Cotton Manuscript of the Alfredian Text鈥�, Anglo-Saxon England 34 (2005), 169-81
鈥楽peaking One鈥檚 Mind in The Wanderer鈥�, in Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell, ed. J. Walmesley (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 117-33
鈥楻ewriting Women in the Old English Boethius鈥�, in New Windows on a Woman鈥檚 World: Essays for Jocelyn Harris, ed. C. Gibson and L. Marr, 2 vols., Otago Studies in English 9 (Dept. of English, University of Otago, 2005), Vol. II, pp. 488-501
鈥楾he Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Idea of Rome in Alfredian Literature鈥�, in Alfred the Great, ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 63-77
鈥榃restling with Hercules: King Alfred and the Classical Past鈥�, in Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages, ed. C. Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 171-88
鈥楻eligious Context: Pre-Benedictine Reform Period鈥�, in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. P. Pulsiano and E. Treharne (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 135-50
鈥楾he Persistence of Old English in the Twelfth Century', in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. M. Swan and E. Treharne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 41-61
鈥楲inguistic Peculiarities in Late Copies of 脝lfric and their Editorial Implications鈥�, in Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Dr Lynne Grundy, ed. J. Roberts and J. Nelson, King鈥檚 College London Medieval Studies (King鈥檚 College London, 2000), pp. 237-57
鈥楢dam or Christ? A Pronominal Pun in The Dream of the Rood', The Review of English Studies n.s. 48 (1997), 433-47
鈥樷�楿lysses and Circe in King Alfred's Boethius: A Classical Myth Transformed', in Studies in English Language and Literature: `Doubt Wisely': Papers in Honour of E. G. Stanley, ed. M. J. Toswell and E. M. Tyler (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 387-401
鈥楤ones of Contention: The Context of 脝lfric鈥檚 Homily on St Vincent鈥�, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), 117-32