Professor Anthony Bale
(Birkbeck, University of London)
Friday, 11 September 2015 @ 6pm.
Venue: Austin Lecture Theatre, First Floor, Arts Building, UWA
All Welcome!
The medieval English mystic Margery Kempe (c. 1373-c. 1439) is famous for having been given ‘the gift of tears’ – this caused her to cry, wail, scream, weep, and sob, uncontrollably and publicly. This lecture will describe the ’emotional geography’ of Kempe’s tears, and focus on providing a detailed account of two of Kempe’s moments of weeping during her pilgrimage to Palestine.
Professor Bale is an ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Distinguished International Visitor in 2015. He has published widely on medieval literature, culture, and religion, and has edited and translated several medieval texts including a new translation and edition of The Book of Margery Kempe with Oxford University Press. His current work explores travel and pilgrimage between England and the Holy Land in the later Middle Ages. For more details, see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/our-staff/full-time-academic-staff/bale.
