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School of English

Raluca Radulescu, BA, MPhil, PhD

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Name:

Raluca Radulescu

Position:

Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature

Email:

Location:

213 New Arts

Phone:

+44 (0)1248 382110

Prior to my arrival at Bangor I taught at the Universities of Manchester, Trinity College Dublin and Francois Rabelais, Tours. I have also held research fellowships at New Europe College (Institute for Advanced Studies, Bucharest, Romania), at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (EHESS and MSH, Paris) and was an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the Huntington Library.

Teaching

Medieval literature from Beowulf to the Reformation, palaeography and codicology, literary and critical theory. Particular interests in medieval romance and the Arthurian legend through the centuries (including modern media), Chaucer, alliterative poetry. At postgraduate level I am interested in links between romance, chronicle and historical writing (including genealogy and propaganda), political culture and its expression in various texts and the reception of these in terms of class, gender, etc. I am also interested in the reception of miscellaneous manuscripts including works by major authors like Chaucer and Lydgate.

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome postgraduate projects linked to any of the above areas, especially those of an interdisciplinary nature. I am currently supervising research students whose work focuses on the following topics: the horse in Malory and romance; the translation and reception of three Middle English Merlin romances; the Orient in medieval and early modern romance; the Grail in medieval and modern literature; ships and shipping in medieval English literature.

Research profile

My research has focused in particular on the development of medieval romance (Arthurian and non-Arthurian) and its relationship with other genres, including historical and religious writing. These interests are reflected in my publications, ranging from articles and chapters to collaborative projects. My doctoral research, revised and published as a monograph, was a study of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur from the perspective of the political concerns that he shared with his fifteenth-century gentry readers. Malory’s work continues to feature prominently among my other shorter studies (articles and chapters) and a co-edited collection of essays bringing together the latest research in Malory studies, Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes (co-edited with Kevin Whetter) (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005). My interest in audience and the relationship between social status, identity and the writing of literature has led me to initiate two other pioneering projects that I later co-edited, Gentry Culture in Late-Medieval England (with Alison Truelove, MUP, 2005) and Readers and Writers of the Brut Chronicle (with William Marx, 2006).

A number of current projects focus on genre in romance literature and historical writing, and on journeys in medieval romance. My fascination with genealogical literature forms the impetus behind a collective project I started and have recently co-ordinated, Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France (with E. D. Kennedy, Brepols, 2008). Another project I completed is a Companion to Medieval Popular Romance, the most inclusive and thorough examination of romance to date (with Cory James Rushton, Boydell, 2009). These last two projects reflect my current interests in developing our understanding of the links between the production and reception of romance in the larger socio-political context of fifteenth-century England; I am exploring these links in my next monograph, Spiritual Journeys through Political Realities in Medieval English Romance. I am a member of the following research clusters:

Cultures of War and Conflict Resolution Research Network
(Medieval and Early Modern)
Please visit the new culturesofwar.bangor.ac.uk website

Pre-Modern Travel Research Network (PREMOT)
Please visit the new premot.bangor.ac.uk website

CARMEN (Co-operative for the Advancement of Research through a Medieval European Network)
http://carmen.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/

Major publications

Books

Image of the book cover 'Broken Lines

The Gentry Context for Malory’s Morte Darthur (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003).

co-ed., Companion to Medieval Popular Romance, series Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2009). Includes Introduction and own chapter.

co-ed., Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, series Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, vol. 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008). Includes Introduction and own chapter.

co-ed., Readers and Writers of the Brut Chronicles, Trivium 36 (2006).  Contains own chapter, ‘Gentry Readers of Brut and Genealogical Material’, pp. 189-202.
Image of book cover Gentry culture in Late Medieval England
co-ed., Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).  Own chapter, ‘Literature’, 100-18, and co-written ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-18.

co-ed., Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005). Own chapter ‘“Oute of measure”: Violence and Knighthood in Malory’s Morte Darthur, pp. 119-31.

Selected articles and chapters

‘Pious Romances Turned Political: the Case of Isumbras, Sir Gowther and Robert of Sicily’, Viator 41:2 (Fall 2010), 333-59.

‘Malory and the Grail’, chapter 22 in A Companion to Arthurian Literature, ed. H. Fulton (Maldon, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 326-39.

‘Malory’s Lancelot and the Key to Salvation’, Arthurian Literature 25 (2008), 93-118.

‘Writing Nation: Shaping Identity in Medieval Historical Narratives’, chapter 21 in Companion to Medieval English Literature c.1350-1500, ed. Peter Brown (Oxford:  Blackwell, 2007), pp. 358-73.

‘Ballad and Popular Romance in the Percy Folio’, Arthurian Literature 23 (2006), 68-80.

‘Gentry Readers of Brut and Genealogical Material’, in Readers and Writers of the Brut Chronicles, see reference above.

‘“Now I take uppon me the adventures to seke of holy thynges’: Lancelot and the Crisis of Arthurian Knighthood’, in Textual Traditions of Mediaeval Arthurian Literature: Essays in Honour of P.J.C. Field, ed. B. Wheeler(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), pp. 285-95.

‘Sir Thomas Malory and Fifteenth-Century Political Ideas’, Arthuriana 13:3 (2003), 36-51.

‘Yorkist Propaganda and the Chronicle from Rollo to Edward IV’ (inclusive of appendix which contains an edition of the chronicle), Studies in Philology 100.4 (2003), 401-24.

Membership of editorial boards and professional associations

  • From 2010- Welsh representative on the UK National Association of Medievalists
  • From 2007- contributor to the medieval section of Year's Work in English Studies (sections on romance, Malory, and Caxton)
  • From 2007- member of the committee of AMARC (Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections)
  • From 2007- AHRC peer review college member
  • From 2007 - member of the editorial board of the medieval section of 'Literature Compass' journal
  • From 2005- Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies
    2006-2008 co-convenor, IMEMS research seminars
  • 2005-7 and 2007- Organiser of interdisciplinary doctoral training in medieval palaeography and codicology (AHRC funded 2005-7, then by Bangor College of Arts and Humanities)
  • 2002-10  Member, Committee of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society
  • 2006-8 UK and Ireland Liaison Officer, Carmen (Confederation for the Advancement of Research through a Medieval European Network)

Other