Professor John Arnold

Research interests* Teaching interests* Publications* Areas of research supervision* Contact details

Research interests

I am interested in a number of research areas, mainly focused upon the medieval period but also ranging more widely. Current work includes co-editing a collection of essays on the history of masculinity; research in writings against heresy from antiquity to the Reformation; and editing The Oxford Handbook to Medieval Christianity, which will hopefully appear around 2012/13

My research on heresy and inquisition in southern France (c. 1000-1300) is partly concerned with reconsidering the history of the Cathar heresy, partly with a re-examination of the nature of inquisitorial power, but is ultimately interested in the subjectivity and agency of the 'ordinary' folk questioned by the inquisitors. This has led me into a number of different areas, including analysis of questions of gender, literacy, and the lay relationship to 'belief'. My heretical interests have also extended extended into later medieval England: investigating the way in which Lollard heretics were prosecuted, and the implications of this. My research is informed by interdisciplinary perspectives, drawing particularly on insights from theoretical works in literary, cultural and anthropological studies.

I have researched broader themes of gender (particularly masculinity) and subjectivity in the medieval period, and remain interested in all areas of medieval social and cultural history. Certain longue durée themes also intrigue me: literacy and orality, the nature and possibility of rebellion, the relationship of the self to the body. I also have an interest in 'heritage'/public history and the historian's relationship to the wider world (amongst other themes in the philosophy of history); and I'm particularly excited by marrying theoretical ideas from literature and cultural studies to the analysis of the past. I would also confess to having published minor work on horror movies and science-fiction literature.

Teaching interests

England and Europe in the High and Later Middle Ages; gender and sexuality; religion, belief and heresy.

Publications

Books:

What is Medieval History? (Polity, 2008)

Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe (Hodder Arnold, 2005)

co-edited with K. J. Lewis, A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe (Boydell, 2004)

Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000)

co-edited with S. Ditchfield and K. Davies, History and Heritage: Consuming the Past in Contemporary Culture (Donhead, 1998)

Articles:

''The Materiality of Unbelief in Late Medieval England', in S. Page, ed., The Unorthodox Imagination in Medieval Britain (MUP, forthcoming)

'Inside and Outside the Medieval Laity: Some Reflections on the History of Emotions', in M. Rubin, ed., European Religious Cultures: (IHR, 2009), pp. 107-29

'Religion and Popular Rebellion, from the Capuciati to Niklashausen', Cultural and Social History, 6.2 (2009): 149-69

'Doomed or Disinterested? Did all medieval people believe in God?', BBC History Magazine (January 2009): 38-43

'Repression and Power', in M.Rubin and W.Simons, eds, The Cambridge History of Christianity Volume 4 (2009)

'Gender and Sexuality' in C. Lansing and E. English, eds The Blackwell Companion to Medieval Europe (2008)

'Responses to the Postmodern Challenge; or What might history become', European History Quarterly 37 (2007)

'Margery's Trials: Heresy, Lollardy and Dissent', in Arnold and Lewis, eds, A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe

'Lollard Trials and Inquisitorial Discourse', in C. Given-Wilson, ed., Fourteenth-Century England II (Boydell, 2003), pp. 81-94

'A man takes an ox by the horn and a peasant by the tongue'; Literacy, Orality and Inquisition in Medieval Languedoc', in S. Rees-Jones, ed., Literacy and Learning in Medieval England and Abroad (Brepols, 2003), pp. 31-47

'Inquisition, texts and discourse', in P. Biller and C. Bruschi, eds, Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy (York Medieval Press, 2003), pp. 63-80.

'The Labour of Continence: Masculinity and Virginity in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', in A. Bernau, R. Evans and S. Salih, eds, Medieval Virginities (University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 102-18

'The Preaching of the Cathars', in C. Muessig, ed., Medieval Monastic Preaching (Brill, 1998), pp. 183-205

'The Historian as Inquisitor', Rethinking History 2: 3 (1998), pp. 379-386

Areas of research supervision

I would be happy to offer advice on dissertation and research topics in most areas of English and European history c. 1100-1450, and would be pleased to talk to applicants for PhD supervision, or those who are interested in our medieval MA programmes. I am happy to consider any medieval topics for PhD supervision or co-supervision, and would particularly welcome proposals in the following areas:

(a) medieval religion, belief and piety (including the heretical kind), particularly focussed on the laity

(b) literacy, orality and related topics in the medieval period

(c) research on discourse, subjectivity and individuality in the middle ages

(d) medieval gender and sexuality

I would also be happy to supervise work relating to the philosophy of history, and the relationship between history and critical theory.

Contact details

Email: j.arnold@bbk.ac.uk

Tel: 020 7631 6273

Room: 269 (Malet Street)