Staff in the Department of Hispanic Studies
Go to the MLAC staff pages.
Dr Andrew Beresford, BA, MA, PhD London
Contact Dr Andrew Beresford (email at a.m.beresford@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
Andy Beresford works on Spanish literature and culture to 1700 and has research interests in hagiography and gender, as well as early poetic and narrative theory.
His work to date has engaged with a variety of texts, from body-and-soul debates to Celestina, but his most recent publications have been focused on the vernacular reception of Latin hagiography in Spain, looking specifically at the dissemination of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea. This has produced books on Saints Agnes (2007a), Thaïs and Pelagia (2007b), and most recently, Agatha and Lucy (2010).
He is currently engaged in two extended research projects: the first looking at the reception of the legends of the desert ascetics in Spain, and the second, at the establishment of medieval saintly paradigms and the ways in which they contrast their third and fourth century antecedents. As part of this, he is looking specifically at the relationship between politics and piety, focusing on the question of ideological indoctrination and the battle against heresy.
An emerging research interest is the intersection between verbal and visual representations of saintly identity, and he would been keen to collaborate with colleagues - nationally or internationally - who are also working in this area.
Book Reviews
Andy regularly reviews for a number of journals and his work has appeared in: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Journal of Theological Studies, La Corónica, Speculum, Medium Aevum, and Modern Language Review.
Postgraduate Supervision
Andy is able to supervise most topics dealing with Spanish literature and culture to 1700, but is particularly interested in projects that intersect with his research interests in hagiography, gender, and poetic or narrative theory. Topics he has supervised or is currently supervising at doctoral level include: Military Martyrs in Medieval Castilian Prose, Anomalous Women in Fifteenth-Century Spanish Poetry, the Saintly Widow in Medieval Castilian Literature, and Representations of Martyrdom.
Research Collaboration
Andy is a founding member of Durham's Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (IMRS) and contributes to its seminar series, monograph series (DPMRS, Durham Publications in Medieval and Renaissance Texts), and MA programme, which he directs. He is also a member of MLAC's Literature & Theory Group, and has recently collaborated with colleagues from various departments (notably Anthropology) on an interdisciplinary project dealing with narrative. This focuses specifically on the ways in which narrative is formed, written, rewritten, transported across different media, or between different languages and cultures. It also looks at how it intersects with other modes of expression, literary, pictorial, or otherwise, and the theories and methodologies that underpin differing modes of analysis.
Andy is a member of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, the international research Group Coordinación de la Edición de la Hagiografía Castellana, and the Senior Editorial Board of Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar (Queen Mary, London).
Research Groups
- Literature/History/Theory
Selected Publications
Books: authored
- 2010 The Severed Breast: The Legends of Saints Agatha and Lucy in Medieval Castilian Literature, Juan de la Cuesta, 274 pp.
- 2007 The Legend of Saint Agnes in Medieval Castilian Literature, Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 103 pp.
- 2007 The Legends of the Holy Harlots: Thaïs and Pelagia in Medieval Spanish Literature, Tamesis, 165 pp.
Books: edited
- 2000 (co-edited with Alan Deyermond) Proceedings of the Ninth Colloquium, Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary & Westfield College, 238 pp.
- 1997 ‘Quien hubiese tal ventura’ Medieval Hispanic Studies in Honour of Alan Deyermond, Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary & Westfield College, 400 pp.
- 1997 (co-edited with Alan Deyermond) Proceedings of the Eighth Colloquium, Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary & Westfield College, 162 pp.
Essays in edited volumes
- 2013 'Sanctity and prejudice in Medieval Castilian Hagiography: The Legend of Saint Moses the Ethiopian', in Beresford, Andrew, Haywood, Louise & Weiss, Julian (eds.), Medieval Hispanic Studies in Memory of Alan Deyermond, Tamesis.
- 2005 'The Minor Poems of Juan Rodríguez del Padrón: Critical Edition and Analysis', in Alan Deyermond & Carmen Parrilla (eds.), Juan Rodríguez del Padrón: Studies in Honour of Olga Tudorică Impey. 1, Poetry and Doctrinal Prose, Queen Mary, University of London, Department of Hispanic Studies, pp. 17-52
- 2005 'The Poetry of Medieval Spain', in Gies, David T. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, Cambridge University Press, pp. 75-94
- 2000 'Cortol la cabeça e atola del petral, ca la querie dar en donas a Galiana: On the Relationship between Death and Sexuality in Four Epic Legends', in Pattison, David (ed.), Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, University of London, pp. 41-63
- 2000 'The Vida de Santa María Egipciaca and the Question of Manuscript Unity', in Hook, David (ed.), Text & Manuscript in Medieval Spain: Papers from the King's College Colloquium, King's College, pp. 79-102
- 1997 ''Ençendida del ardor de la luxuria': Prostitution and Promiscuity in the Legend of Saint Mary of Egypt', in Andrew M. Beresford (ed.), `Quien hubiese tal ventura': Medieval Hispanic Studies in Honour of Alan Deyermond, Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary & Westfield College, pp. 45-56
Journal papers: academic
- 2010 'A Sermon for the Feast of Saint Julian the Martyr', Revista de Poetica Medieval 24, pp. 49-75
- 2010 'Rereading Jerome in Spain in the Middle Ages: The Vida de Sant Paulo and the Legend of Saint Paul of Thebes', Mediaeval Studies 72, pp. 1-37
- 2001 ''Una oraçión, señora, que le dixeron que sabías, de Sancta Polonia para el dolor de las muelas': Celestina and the Legend of St Apollonia', Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 78, pp. 39-57
- 1997 'Antonio López de Meta's Tractado del cuerpo e de la ánima and the Hispanic Body-and-Soul Tradition', Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 74, pp. 139-50
- 1996 'Sobre la repetición léxica en el Auto de los Reyes Magos', Incipit 16, pp. 143-63
- 1996 'Theme, Style, and Structure in the Disputa del cuerpo e del ánima', Revista de Literatura Medieval 8, pp. 73-90
- 1995 'The Disputa del cuerpo e del ánima and the Visión de Filiberto: A Reappraisal of Sources', La Corónica 23.2, pp. 3-15
Grants Awarded
- 2009: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
- 2007: AHRC Research Leave Award
- 2005: AHRC Research Leave Award