Department of English

Academic Staff

Dr. Hannah Piercy

Advanced PostDoc / Assistentin

Medieval English Studies

E-Mail
hannah.piercy@unibe.ch
Office
B267
Postal Address
Department of English
Unitobler
Länggassstr. 49
CH – 3000 Bern 9
Consultation Hour
By appointment (please book via email).

Hannah Piercy teaches and researches medieval English literature and culture. She is the author of Resistance to Love in Medieval English Romance: Negotiating Consent, Gender, and Desire (available open access or in paperback from D. S. Brewer) and the co-editor of Consent: Legacies, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future (Routledge, 2023).

Hannah is currently working on a second book for her postdoctoral habilitation project, provisionally titled Sensory Experience in Middle English Romance. Her two book projects are united by an interest in exploring the ideological functions of Middle English romance, its intersections with or departures from the priorities of other genres, and the impact romance writing had upon its readers. Hannah is more broadly interested in questions of genre, gender, sexuality, embodiment, materiality, emotion, and sensory studies, all of which feature in her teaching and research. She is committed to making her teaching and research inclusive and accessible.

Hannah joined the University of Bern in 2021, after completing her PhD at Durham University. Prior to her PhD, Hannah completed an MA in Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies at Durham University, and a BA in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. During her masters, Hannah studied Old English Language and Literature as well as an interdisciplinary module on early medieval England. She maintains interests in Old English literature, as well as early modern literature and culture.

Research interests

Medieval English literature and culture, especially medieval romance; gender studies (in a broad and inclusive sense); sensory studies; medieval sexualities; consent and coercion; the body and embodiment; the history of emotions; the medical humanities; race and the global Middle Ages; medieval readers; textual transmission; nature and the environment; medievalism in the modern world.

Teaching

Hannah’s teaching has included:

Medieval Women’s Literary Communities’ (BA Focus Module Seminar, FS24)
‘Beyond Words: Literary and Linguistic Perspectives on the Senses’, lecturer on BA Focus Module, contributing two lectures co-written and co-presented with Prof. Dr. Annette Kern-Stähler
‘Analysing Literature’ (BA Core Curriculum course, FS23)
‘Discovering a Medieval Manuscript: MS Ashmole 61’ (MA workshop, HS22)
‘Bodies in Medieval and Early Modern Romance’ (co-taught with Dr. Nicole Nyffenegger, HS22)
‘Seascapes and Sea-crossings in Old and Middle English Literature’ (Focus module seminar, co-taught with Dr. Will Brockbank, FS22)           
‘Convention and Subversion: Genre and Gender in Medieval Saints’ Lives’ (HS21)
‘Fairies and Otherworlds in Medieval Romance’ (FS21

Hannah supervises BA and MA theses on relevant topics.                                 

Hannah previously taught ‘Romance and the Literature of Chivalry’ and ‘Introduction to Drama’ at Durham University.

Publications

Monographs:

Resistance to Love in Medieval English Romance: Negotiating Consent, Gender, and Desire, Studies in Medieval Romance, 25 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2023). Available Open Access: https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/publications/-265233/resistance-to-love-in-medieval-english-romance

Hannah is currently working on a second monograph on sensory experience in Middle English romance.

Edited Volumes:

Consent: Legacies, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future, ed. Sophie Franklin, Hannah Piercy, Arya Thampuran, and Rebecca White, Interdisciplinary Research in Gender (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

Piercy, Hannah, ‘Contact, Conduct, and Tactile Networks: Touch and its Social Functions in Middle English Verse Romance’, in Literature and the Senses, ed. Annette Kern-Stähler and Elizabeth Robertson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 355-74. Available Open Access: https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780192843777.pdf

Franklin, Sophie, Hannah Piercy, Arya Thampuran, and Rebecca White, “Introduction,” in Consent: Legacies, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future, ed. Sophie Franklin, Hannah Piercy, Arya Thampuran, and Rebecca White, Interdisciplinary Research in Gender (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023). Available Open Access.

Franklin, Sophie, Hannah Piercy, Arya Thampuran, and Rebecca White, “Afterword,” in Consent: Legacies, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future, ed. Sophie Franklin, Hannah Piercy, Arya Thampuran, and Rebecca White, Interdisciplinary Research in Gender (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023). Available Open Access.

Piercy, Hannah, ‘Desire, Consent, and Misogyny in Post-medieval Adaptations of the Pelleas and Ettarde Story’, Journal of the International Arthurian Society, 10.1 (2022), 5-28.

Piercy, Hannah, ‘The Ethics of Community in the Lai d’Haveloc’, Le Cygne: The Journal of the International Marie de France Society, 8 (2022), 53-71.

Piercy, Hannah, ‘Binding and Unbinding: Fashioning Narrative in Medieval Romance’, Durham English Review, 4.1 (2016), 70-98.

Other:

Hannah has written numerous book reviews for Medium Ævum and Nottingham Medieval Studies. She is happy to be contacted about opportunities to review books on medieval romance, medieval gender studies, consent, and sensory studies. She has also peer reviewed articles for publication and is happy to be contacted with peer review requests for relevant articles.

Personal Profile

Hannah is a member of the following professional organisations:

  • The Swiss Association of University Teachers of English (SAUTE)
  • The Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (SAMEMES)
  • The Berner Mittelalter Zentrum (BMZ)
  • The Higher Education Academy (as Associate Fellow)
  • The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
  • The Early English Text Society
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature
  • The International Marie de France Society
  • The International Arthurian Society
  • The New Chaucer Society
  • Print Exchanges (a network for researchers of early print: https://printexchanges.org/)