2025 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference
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)
