About the Series
Aims & Objectives
The Long Middle Ages Seminar Series is a PGR-led interdisciplinary seminar series for postgraduate students and early career researchers working on the late antique, medieval and early modern periods. The series provides a space for emerging researchers to trial their arguments and ideas, to receive constructive feedback on their research and to build meaningful connections with scholars across the disciplines of Arts and Humanities.
A fundamental aim of the series is to establish further connectivity between scholars working in a variety of disciplines on the late antique, medieval and early modern periods. Hence, the series welcomes a range of research approaches – either traditional methods or interdisciplinary methodologies and frameworks – and speakers are welcome to present their work in any format on historical, literary, archaeological, art historical, linguistic, or any other specialisations under the remit of the Long Middle Ages.
The Organising Committee
The seminar series is supported by the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UKRI). Members of the organising committee consist of postgraduate researchers from across the White Rose University Consortium – Leeds, Sheffield and York.
— Members —
Co-Convenor of The Long Middle Ages
Natalie Hopwood is a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds, housed in the School of English and the Institute for Medieval Studies. Her doctoral research is on monster encounters as points of intertextuality in Old Norse fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur, which includes examples of dragons, dwarfs, and the undead. She earned her MPhil from the University of Cambridge in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, where she worked on the undead episodes in Eyrbyggja saga as social symbols, and her MA from the University of St Andrews in Mediaeval History, where her final year dissertation conceptualized the Old Norse dragon across historical and literary texts.
Natalie’s research interests are monster studies and intertextuality, the memory of literature, and the concept of medieval fiction within Old Norse literature. She also works on the reception of Old Norse mythology, and other medieval literature, in modern media, particularly American comic books such as The Mighty Thor, The Demon, and The Sandman, and how they are representative of contemporary political and culture interests. She has published on the emotions of the draugar in the Íslendingasögur and has upcoming publications include works on the medieval as TikTok trend and Jack Kirby’s use of Norse mythology in twentieth century comic books.
Co-Convenor of The Long Middle Ages
Saaleha Iqbal is a PhD researcher in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, funded by a WRoCAH Studentship. Her research focuses on late medieval European responses to the Islamic world and representations of Muslims in European literature. Her thesis examines the peculiar spectrum of Muslim women vividly depicted in the Old French Crusade Cycle and is informed by a range of related texts including crusade histories and other European courtly literatures.
She holds a BA in English Literature with Creative Writing and an MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, both from the University of Manchester. Most recently, she completed a placement at Chetham’s Library where she created a catalogue of the library’s collection of medieval manuscripts.
Series Assistant
Rachael Haslam is a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of York, funded through WRoCAH. She gained her BA in History and her MA in Historical Research from the University of Sheffield. Her PhD project focuses on the dynamics of trust and distrust and the making and breaking of relationships in late medieval church court disputes. Her research makes use of corpus linguistics and network theory methodologies.
Her broader research interests include the legal and social history of the Middle Ages, as well as the application of digital humanities methods to the study of the medieval past. She is also interested in the relationship between academia and policy making and has completed placements with the government’s Open Innovation Team and the Ministry of Justice.
Cameron J. Whiteside
Series Assistant
Cameron Whiteside is a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield. His research is funded by the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities and concerns the Commission on Fees (1622-1640), its operation as a site of Monarchical Paternalism, and its potential significance to the tackling of public corruption in early modern England.
The Long Middle Ages 