Dr Joanna Bellis

BA, MPhil, PhD

Special Supervisor

College Roles

Special Supervisor in English

Contact

Biography

Joanna Bellis is Special Supervisor in Medieval literature. It is her great pleasure to teach undergraduates for Part I Papers 2 and 3 (English Literature and its Contexts, 1066-1350 and 1300-1550), Practical Criticism, Part II optional papers (Chaucer/Medieval Supernatural) and dissertations.

Research Interests

Her research is focused on medieval and early modern historical writing, particularly the ways that historiographers positioned themselves as authors (borrowing the modes literary/chivalric/fictional writing), and pondered the ethical implications of ‘writing history’. Her first book (The Hundred Years War in Literature, 1337-1600, Cambridge: Brewer, 2016) followed the snowballing legend of that conflict from its contemporary narrators to its sixteenth-century afterlife, and representation on the Tudor stage. That led her to the discovery of the remarkable and little-known eyewitness poem, John Page’s The Siege of Rouen, which she edited for Middle English Texts (Heidelberg: Winter, 2015). It is a complex and ambitious text, which ponders the often-conflicting demands of patriotism, compassion, writing for the king, and writing war poetry. Working on this text led to Joanna’s current project, a book about eyewitness writing. With Laura Slater (Oxford), she co-edited Representing War and Violence, 1250-1600 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2016), which brings together the work of historians, literary critics and art historians. For more details, see http://www.joannabellis.com/.