Department of English

Academic Staff

One retires from teaching and administrative duties, but not from scholarship, which continues in a variety of forms, of which publications are the most visible product. Most of my recent publications can be consulted on BORIS: https://boris.unibe.ch. They reflect the wide range of my research interests, from Old English to early Modern English literature in a European context and, most recently, in the context of global Alexander (the Great) studies. Recurring emphases have been on figurations of cartographic and literary space in historiography (e.g. the Polychronicon) and in medieval narratives of travel (from founding legends to Mandeville and Margery Kempe), with a focus on gender and on configurations of writing (converging in the space of the bed, in narratives of female suicide and of theogamy, but also as a premodern locus of writing). My most recent project – which is now in its final stages - consists of a verse translation of the roughly 20’000 extant decasyllabic couplets of Gilbert Hay’s fifteenth-century compendious, inventive biography of Alexander the Great; his Scots Buik has been transcribed (but not yet edited) and deserves a wider readership than it currently enjoys. At the time of writing this (January 2024), I have completed well over 17’000 verses: only two thousand more to go!  

In addition to working on my own projects, I enjoy the challenges presented by the scholarship of others, especially in connection with the series Alexander redivivus (published by Brepols), of which I am one of four general editors. The fifteen volumes that are currently in print cover various aspects of Alexander scholarship, in the form of monographs, editions, and translations, in French, Spanish, Italian, English and German. See further http://www.brepols.net/Pages/BrowseBySeries.aspx?TreeSeries=AR

Publications

Prof. em. Dr. Margaret Bridges (select recent publications)

Books (published and in the press, since 2008):

Trajectoires européennes du Secretum secretorum du Pseudo-Aristote (xiiie-xvie siècle). Ed., with Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas and Jean-Yves Tilliette. Alexander Redivivus 6. Turnhout : Brepols, 2015.

Les Voyages d'Alexandre au paradis: Orient et Occident, regards croisés. Ed., with Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas. Alexander Redivivus 3.Turnhout : Brepols, 2013.

Gender Scripts : Widerspenstige Aneignungen von Geschlechternormen , Ed., with Christa Binswanger, Brigitte Schnegg and Doris Wastl-Walter. Politik der Geschlechterverhältnisse 40. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2009.

 

Select articles and chapters in books (published and in the press, since 2000):

“Geoffrey Chaucer”, in La fabrique de Dante, eds. P. Allegretti and M. Jakob (exhibition  catalogue), Geneva: Métis Presses, 2021, 140-141.

“Fifteenth-Century English and Scots Narrative Contexts for Creatures of the Gaze: The Basilisk and the Caladrius”. In Animals in Text and Textile. Storytelling in the Medieval World, eds. Evelin Wetter and Kathryn Starkey, Riggisberger Berichte 23, Riggisberg: Abegg Stiftung, 2019, pp. 91-106.

“Writing, Translating, and Imagining Italy in the Polychronicon”. In Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages, eds. Helen Fulton and Michele Campopiano, Woodbridge and York: The Boydell Press and York Medieval Press, 2018, pp. 8-39.

“Englishing Quintus Curtius in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries : John Brende and his Posterity”, in Postérités européennes de Quinte-Curce: De l'humanisme aux Lumières (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle), C. Gaullier-Bougassas, ed., Turnhout: Brepols, 2018, 295-324.

“Spaces for Alexander in Book I of the Fifteenth-century English Polychronicon, British Library, Harley MS 2261”. In Alexandre à la lumière des manuscrits et des premiers imprimés en Europe. Matérialité des textes, contextes et paratextes: des lectures originales, ed. C. Gaullier-Bougassas, 2015, pp. 451-474.

“ John Lydgate’s Last Poem”. In Trajectoires européennes du Secretum secretorum du Pseudo-Aristote (xiiie-xvie siècle). Ed., C. Gaullier-Bougassas, M. Bridges and J.-Y. Tilliette. Alexander Redivivus 6. Turnhout : Brepols, 2015 (p. 317-336).

“Cheminements culturels et métamorphoses d’un texte aussi célèbre qu’énigmatique” (with C. Gaullier-Bougassas and J.-Y. Tilliette). In Trajectoires européennes du Secretum secretorum du Pseudo-Aristote (xiiie-xvie siècle). Ed., C. Gaullier-Bougassas, M. Bridges and J.-Y. Tilliette. Alexander Redivivus 6. Turnhout : Brepols, 2015 (p. 5-25).

“Alexandre dans la littérature anglaise”. InLa fascination pour Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes (Xe-début du XVIe siècle). Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, 4 vols., Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014 , vol. 1, p. 74-80.

“Lettres anglaises dans une culture plurilingue”. InLa fascination pour Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes (Xe-début du XVIe siècle). Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, 4 vols., Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, vol. 1, p. 451-489

“Un Alexandre « populaire » en Angleterre : écrire la royauté au pays des couronnes vacillantes”. InLa fascination pour Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes (Xe-début du XVIe siècle). Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, 4 vols., Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, vol. 2, p. 1035-1082.

“Un parcours anglais difficile, del la méfiance et du mépris à l’éloge de la connaissance”. InLa fascination pour Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes (Xe-début du XVIe siècle). Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, 4 vols., Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014 , vol. 3, p. 1559-1594.

“Repertoire des écrits anglais sur Alexandre, dans Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, p. 325-372.

“Jacob van Maerlant’s Alexanders geesten”, dans Réinventions d’un mythe, ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Alexander redivivus 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, p. 467-475.]

“Five Late Middle English Versions of the Narreme of Alexander’s Wondrous Gift”. In Les Voyages d’Alexandre au paradis: Orient et Occident, regards croisés, Alexander Redivivus 3, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, p. 485-519.

“Figurations d’une rencontre dans les littératures germaniques, néerlandaise et anglaise.” In Les Voyages d'Alexandre au paradis: Orient et Occident, regards croisés, Alexander Redivivus 3, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, p. 61-75.

“Sur les traces d'une légende, en quête du sens” (joint publication with Catherine Gaullier Bougassas). In Les Voyages d'Alexandre au paradis: Orient et Occident, regards croisés, Alexander Redivivus 3, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, p. 5-11.

“Avatars et Imitations: La création de nouvelles fictions paradisiaques” (joint publication, with Catherine Gaullier Bougassas). In Les Voyages d'Alexandre au paradis: Orient et Occident, regards croisés, Alexander Redivivus 3, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, p. 77-90.

“Murdering Self-Murder : Negotiating Suicide in Medieval English Rewriting of Classical Myth and History.” In Actualiser le passé : figures antiques du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance, eds. Jean-Claude Mühlethaler et Delphine Burghgraeve, Lausanne, CEMEP, 2012, p. 14-32.

“Verbal Duelling on the Beach: Cultural Translation and the Agonistic Vocabulary of Kyng Alisaunder.” In Words, Words, Words: Philology and Beyond. Festschrift for Andreas Fischer on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Eds. Sarah Chevalier and Thomas Honegger. Tübingen: Narr, 2012, p. 23-40.

“Satan’s Posterity: The Strange Filiation of Vortigern and Faustus.” In After Satan: Essays in Honour of Neil Forsyth. Eds. Kirsten Stirling and Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010, p. 30-45.

“Chaucer’s Good Women and Their Estranged Bedfellows: Adryane, Dido and Alceste.” In Mythes à la cour, Mythes pour la cour. Eds. Alain Corbellari, Yasmina Foehr-Janssens, Jean-Claude Mühlethaler, Jean-Yves Tilliette et Barbara Wahlen. Geneva: Droz, 2010, p. 83-104.

“Adressing the Bed: Towards a Premodern Poetics of Lost Love.” In Mémoire et oubli dans le lyrisme européen. Eds. Dagmar Wieser et Patrick Labarthe, Paris: Champion, 2008, p. 311- 341.

“Mehr als ein Text. Das ungelesene Buch zwischen Symbol und Fetisch.” In Buchkultur im Mittelalter: Schrift-Bild-Kommunikation. Eds. Michael Stolz and Adrian Mettauer, Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2005, p. 103 - 121.

“The Reinvention of the Medieval Traveller as Cultural Colonization in Richard Hakluyt'sPricipall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation.” In Berichten-Erzählen- Beherrschen. Wahrnehmung und Repräsentation in der frühen Kolonialgeschichte Europas. Eds. Susanna Burghartz, Maike Christadler und Dorothea Nolde. Zeitsprünge. Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main, 2003, p. 317-333.

“Neithyr of hem cowd wel vnirstand other: Negotiating Collective and Individual Identity through Language Contact in the English Middle Ages.” In SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 15: Globalisation. Eds. Frances Ilmberger and Alan Robinson. Tübingen: Narr, 2002, p. 49-64.

“Premodern as Postmodern? Preposterous Representations of Gender in Mandeville’s Orient.” In Geschlechterdifferenz und Macht. Reflexion gesellschaftlicher Prozess. Eds. Stefanie Brander, Rainer J. Schweizer, Beat Sitter-Liver. Freiburg, 2001, p. 303-319.

“Woman in a Boat: Incest, Miscegenation and Hybridity in Early Medieval Narratives of the Coming of the Saxons.” In Crossover: Cultural Hybridity in Ethnicity, Gender, Ethics. Ed. Thérèse Steffen. Tübingen: Narr, 2000, p. 117-133.

Conferences

2008, October 3/4: “Pretexts, Intertextualities, and the Construction of Textual Identity”

On 3 – 4 October 2008, Margaret Bridges and Nicole Nyffenegger organized a two-day conference for SAMEMES (the Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies) on Pretexts, Intertextualities, and the Construction of Textual Identity, which was supported by the Elsa and Max Beer-Brawand Foundation as well as by the Hochschulstiftung der Burgergemeinde Bern.

The conference focussed on some of the numerous critical and theoretical interests common to Medieval and Early Modern English studies, whether relating to modes of textual production and reception (the advent of print culture does not spell out the demise of manuscript production, nor do these two forms of textuality reflect the wide range of literary transmission and reception, which is further affected by intermediality), to formal or thematic continuities and discontinuities (processes of cultural memory and/or amnesia), or whether concerning the effects of social and political change in (gendered and transgendered) construction of textual identities. Current theoretical approaches to literary history require that the study of diachronic and synchronic relationships between texts - pretexts and intertexts - take into account mechanisms of cultural transmission, as well as of gender and identity construction.

Sixty six scholars and students attended the conference which took place at the Abegg Stiftung in Riggisberg and at the Haus der Universität in Berne. In addition to nineteen speakers from Switzerland and abroad, key-note lectures were given by Stephen Orgel (Stanford University), Ad Putter (University of Bristol), David Wallace (University of Pennsylvania) and Helen Wilcox (Bangor). A selection of papers will be published in a forthcoming issue of SPELL (Swiss Publications in English Language and Literature).

Further information can be obtained from www.samemes.org