Staff in the Department of French
Dr Luke Sunderland
Contact Dr Luke Sunderland (email at luke.sunderland@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
My research interests are in medieval French, Occitan and Franco-Italian literature. I am currently looking at resistance against royal power in medieval culture, with particular attention to the corpus of chansons de geste about rebel barons. I examine these works through lenses of medieval political theory, modern thought about the ethics of violence, anthropological work on feud and rebellion, and histories of sovereignty.
Other current research interests include hybrid languages, especially in the context of the French of Italy, and medieval practices and concepts of translation. I am a member of an international group of medievalists looking at the ethics and politics of translation in the Middle Ages, and I am contributing a chapter on Venice to a new literary history of late medieval Europe: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/regeneration/
I have launched a collaborative investigation into the culture of medieval libraries involving Emma Campbell (University of Warwick), Philippe Frieden (Universite de Lausanne), Miranda Griffin (University of Cambridge) and Thomas Hinton (Durham University).
I have previously worked on cyclical narratives, with a focus on the relationship between ethics, morals and the figure of the hero in the Guillaume d'Orange cycle, the Lancelot and Tristan prose romances, and the Roman de Renart. A book based on this research came out in 2010. I have also published on the Occitan troubadours.
Before coming to Durham, I was a graduate student at King's College London, and then research fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Postgraduate Supervision
I would be keen to hear from students interested in pursuing research in any area of medieval French and Occitan literature.
Research Groups
- Literature/History/Theory
Research Interests
- Medieval French Literature
- Medieval Occitan Literature
- Franco-Italian Literature
- Medieval Libraries
- Medieval Translation
Selected Publications
Books: authored
- 2010 Old French Narrative Cycles: Heroism Between Ethics and Morality, D.S. Brewer, 220 pp.
Essays in edited volumes
- 2013 'Venice', in Wallace, David (ed.), Regeneration: A Literary History of Europe 1348-1415, Oxford University Press.
- 2012 'Bueve d'Hantone/Bovo d'Antona: Exile, Translation and the History of the Chanson de geste', in Campbell, Emma & Mills, Robert (eds.), Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory, D.S. Brewer, pp. 226-242
- 2012 'Chanson de geste', in Greene, Roland (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Princeton, pp. 220-222
- 2012 'Multilingualism and Empire in L’Entrée d’Espagne', in Weiss, Julian & Salih, Sarah (eds.), Locating the Middle Ages: The Spaces and Places of Medieval Culture, King's College London, pp. 55-66
- 2008 'The (Future) Perfect Knight: Repetition in the Cycle de Guillaume d’Orange', in Lindley, Elizabeth & McMahon, Laura (eds.), Rhythms: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture, Peter Lang, pp. 87-99
Journal papers: academic
- 2012 'Genre, Ideology and Utopia in Huon de Bordeaux', Medium Aevum 81, pp. 289-302
- 2011 'Linguistic and Political Ferment in the Franco-Italian Epic: The Geste Francor as Minor Literature', Exemplaria 23, pp. 293-313
- 2011 'Marcabru in Motion: “Dire vos vuoill ses duptanssa” in Chansonniers A and C, and in Matfre Ermengaud's Breviari d’amor', Glossator 4, pp. 115-130
- 2010 'The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva', Comparative Literature 62, pp. 22-40
- 2008 'Le Cycle de Renart: From the Enfances to the Jugement in a Cyclical Roman de Renart Manuscript', French Studies 62, pp. 1-12
- 2008 'Entre résistance et révolte: les enjeux du territoire', Revue des langues romanes 112, pp. 465-490