Holly Dempster-Edwards
Emotional Communities, Gender, Crusading and ‘Racial-Religious’ Identity in Prose Epics and Chronicles at the Court of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419-1467).
Biography
In 2019, I graduated with a First-class BA (Hons) with Distinctions in Modern Languages (French and Spanish) from St Hilda’s College, Oxford. I then taught these languages for a year at an international boarding school before undertaking an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, from which I graduated in 2021 with a Distinction. I then commenced my PhD in French here at the University of Liverpool, under the supervision of Drs Rebecca Dixon and Pollie Bromilow. I am also in my fourth year of teaching French (and sometimes Spanish!) to undergraduates in the University’s Language Lounge.
I have a strong interest in music and the creative arts, and enjoy reading, learning German, playing the piano, dancing and writing fiction. I was a 2024 finalist at the University’s Three Minute Thesis competition and also received a runner-up prize in the 2024 Liverpool Literary Festival’s short story competition.
Research Interests
My current research is in the field of the History of Emotions, in particular in the later prose texts produced at the court of Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419-1467). These are versions of verse texts from earlier centuries, reworked for a fifteenth-century Burgundian audience. These texts often take the form of lavishly illuminated manuscripts, reflecting the pageantry and chivalric culture of Philip’s court.
My research examines the way in which literary emotions contribute to the construction of an ‘emotional community’ (Barbara Rosenwein, 2006) among the knights and courtiers of Philip’s entourage. More generally, I am interested in French-language epics and chronicles from across the Middle Ages, especially texts that deal with the themes of crusading, cross-cultural relations, and the identity categories of gender, race and religion.