IMEMS Durham

Today, the is on Ava Siena Cohen! 💫

Ava is a Barker Doctoral Student on the project ‘Daphne and her Sisters: Framing Gendered Violence' at IMEMS. Her PhD research, in Art History and Italian Studies, focuses on reception of Artemisia Gentileschi in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on her legacy as an artist, feminist icon, and survivor of sexual assault.

As well as her affiliations with MLAC and IMEMS, Ava is part of the Medieval and Early Modern Student Association (MEMSA) serving on the executive board as their conference co-convenor in 2025/26 and vice chair in 2026/27. Her research interests include early modern visual culture (Renaissance, Counter-Reformation, Baroque) in Italy, Caravaggism, history of feminism, and women’s cultural history.

Read more about the project team here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medieval-early-modern-studies/research/inventing-futures/daphne-and-her-sisters-framing-gendered-violence/

The feeling when you get your hands on an IMEMS tote bag! ☀

Read more about our innovative medieval and early modern research here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medieval-early-modern-studies/research/

'For medieval people, reputation was paramount. To be considered reliable, reputable and respectable was important at all levels of society, from the king to the peasantry...' 👀

Another fascinating article by IMEMS member Dr Alex Brown!

Reputation mattered deeply in medieval England.

Dr Alex Brown, Associate Professor in our Department of History and a member of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, examines how people turned to the courts to defend themselves against rumours, slander and damaging accusations.

Discover more➡️ https://brnw.ch/21x4Hzu

Congratulations to our student association, MEMSA, and particularly to conference co-convenors Ava Cohen and Joost Oosterhuis, on organising such a wonderful meeting of minds! 👏

📲 Follow MEMSA to learn more about the conference and keep up with news and events from our postgraduate community.

Today, the is on Professor Rik Van Nieuwenhove!

📖🏷️Throughout August, you can order Rik's latest book, 'Providence, Evil and Salvation: A Thomist Perspective' with a 20% discount: https://tinyurl.com/529xukt6

Rik Van Nieuwenhove is Professor of Medieval Thought in Durham University 's Department of Theology and Religion. He is a longstanding member of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, where he has championed the 'Spiritual Writings from the Low Countries (1200-1550): Context, Influence and Transmission' research cluster alongside a cohort of international scholars. Rik is also a Professor in Durham's Centre for Catholic Studies.

Rik's research interests include historical theology, especially Thomas Aquinas; and the medieval spirituality of the Low Countries. Rik approaches historical theology with a sensitivity to present-day systematic-theological contexts, and his forthcoming volume, Providence, Evil and Salvation (Cambridge University Press) discusses all of these issues from a broadly Thomist perspective.

A long heatwave, severe drought, crop failures and water shortages might sound like a modern climate story. In fact, these events were recorded in England in the 13th century...

In a new The Conversation UK article, Dr Alex Brown from Durham University History Department and IMEMS explores the Medieval Climate Anomaly and what it can teach us about living with climate extremes today.

https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2026/07/drought-water-shortages-and-crop-failures-how-does-the-medieval-warm-period-compare-with-today/

A long heatwave, severe drought, crop failures and water shortages might sound like a modern climate story.

In fact, these events were recorded in England in the 13th century.

In a new The Conversation UK article, Dr Alex Brown from Durham University History Department & IMEMS Durham explores the Medieval Climate Anomaly and what it can teach us about living with climate extremes today.

Read the full article➡️ https://brnw.ch/21x4pks

A fantastic piece by IMEMS member Dr Alex Brown on how survivors of the Black Death recorded their experiences through graffiti, court records and other surviving evidence. 👏

Read more about how we support interdisciplinary research - including Alex's work on computational modelling of medieval diseases - here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medieval-early-modern-studies/research/

How do people remember a pandemic after it has faded from everyday life?

In a new article for The Conversation UK, Dr Alex Brown of Durham University History Department explores how survivors of the Black Death recorded their experiences through graffiti, court records and other surviving evidence.

The piece examines what these medieval memories reveal about trauma, commemoration and collective remembrance - and what they can teach us as we reflect on the legacy of COVID-19.
Read more: 👉 https://brnw.ch/21x47Jd

👏 Huge congratulations to IMEMS member Dr Jacob Lollar (Durham Department of Classics and Ancient History), who has just had three publications appear, all in the same weekend! They include his third book, on the Syriac reception of the 'Acts of Thekla' and the cult of St Thekla, published by Mohr Siebeck.

📃Towards a Syriac Josephus: The Maria Story (teknophagia) of Jewish War 6.201-13 as a Means of Assessing the Early Syriac Text' can be read online here: https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/current-issue.html

📖Thekla in Syriac: The Acts of Thekla and Its Reception in Syriac Traditions, is available to order here: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/thekla-in-syriac-9783161645143/

📃 'Tragic Riddles in the Margins: A Syriac Invocation of the Story of Oedipus' can be accessed here: https://grbs.library.duke.edu/index.php/grbs/issue/view/2318

Read more about Jacob and his research: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/jacob-a-lollar/

🌏💭 We were delighted to host ‘Durham East Asia Postgraduate Research Conversations’ earlier this month. Organized by IMEMS researcher Sare Aricanli and the Thinking East Asia (TEA) Research Cluster in the Durham University History Department, the event also served as the inaugural meeting of the ‘East Asia in the North’ (EATN) network.

The workshop featured a keynote by Professor David Howell (Harvard University) as well as presentations by an interdisciplinary cohort of postgraduate and postdoctoral students from Durham University, The University of Sheffield, Newcastle University and The University of Edinburgh.

Learn more about the research we support here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medieval-early-modern-studies/research/