Dr Cathy Hume
B.A.(Oxon.), Ph.D.(Bristol)
Expertise
I work on the literature of medieval England and its social and cultural contexts. I've written about Chaucer and Middle English biblical poetry, and I am also interested in cognitive approaches to fictional narratives.
Current positions
Associate Professor in Medieval Literature
Department of English
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Biography
My BA was in medieval English literature. I completed an interdisciplinary MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol in 2002, and continued to a PhD on Chaucer's presentation of love and marriage and its social historical contexts, under the supervision of Ad Putter and John Burrow.
I worked on the French of England project at the University of York, as a teaching fellow at the University of Leeds, and held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at Bristol, where I begun work on biblical poetry. After a period living in Chicago, I returned to Bristol as a lecturer in 2013.
Before my MA, I spent 6 years living in London, working in bookselling, publishing and for the Home Office and Prison Service. Before my BA, I grew up in Preston, Lancashire. I continue to miss the north of England and, to a lesser extent, working on criminal policy.
Research interests
My main current research project is on biblical poetry in Middle English. I have been awarded an AHRC RDE fellowship ‘Rewriting the Bible: Medieval Poems and Modern Audiences’, which runs from spring 2024 to autumn 2025. This fellowship will allow me to edit an anthology of ten biblical poems for TEAMS Middle English Texts, and stage a performance of one poem, ‘The Life of Job’, at Winterbourne Medieval Barn in June 2025, with a creative team.
My study of 6 biblical poems, including the Gawain-poet’s Patience and Cleanness, Middle English Biblical Poetry: Romance, Audience and Tradition was published in 2021 by Boydell and Brewer. I have also published a few articles on this subject, including one in New Medieval Literatures 18 on ‘The Life of Job’. I am at an early stage of collaborative work with Alaric Hall at Leeds University on an Islamic Joseph poem; I will also be publishing some research on how popular biblical poetry influenced Piers Plowman.
My PhD investigated Chaucer's presentation of love and marriage relationships in relation to their social historical context, approached through letter collections and advice literature. It was published as Chaucer and the Cultures of Love and Marriage, Bristol Studies in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012). I continue to be broadly interested in the literature of medieval Britain and its social and cultural contexts.
I am also interested in the cognitive aspects of how readers make sense of narratives. I gave a presentation to Malory 550 conference in August 2019 on how this might be a fruitful approach to Malory’s Morte, now published in Arthurian Literature, and plan to do more work in this area. Another current interest is the medieval cultural history of the Somerset levels, especially in relation to King Alfred.
At Bristol I am an active member of the Centre for Medieval Studies.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
AH/Y005112/1 Rewriting the Bible: medieval poems and modern audiences
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of EnglishDates
01/04/2024 to 30/09/2025
Does Motherhood Need Mitigating? A Collective Examination of Parenting and Academic Practice
Principal Investigator
Role
Collaborator
Managing organisational unit
Department of History (Historical Studies)Dates
01/01/2023 to 31/07/2023
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Selected publications
20/08/2021Middle English Biblical Poetry
Middle English Biblical Poetry
The Life of Job
New Medieval Literatures
Chaucer and the cultures of love and marriage
Chaucer and the cultures of love and marriage
Recent publications
01/07/2022What’s Unclean About Belshazzar’s Court?
"That shall nat ye know for me as at thys tyme"
Arthurian Literature
Disease, Disaster, and Death
From Griselda's Daughter
The Middle English Jacob and Joseph fragment in Takamiya MS 32
Teaching
I am on research leave from February 2024 to September 2025.
At postgraduate level, I am supervising or have supervised projects on Chaucer, medieval romance, the reception of the Bible in Middle English, religious drama, and the presentation of women's speech and kingship in medieval texts. I would be interested in supervising work related to any of these subjects, any of my other research interests, or any project that brings together social, cultural and intellectual history with medieval literature in English and French.