The University of Western Australia

Professor Andrew Lynch

Director
Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Contact details

Address

Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
The University of Western Australia (M202)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia

Phone

6488 2185

Fax

6488 1030

Email

andrew.lynch@uwa.edu.au

Qualifications

MA Melb., MPhil Oxf.

Biography

Education
BA (Hons) English Language and Literature, Melbourne University, 1972. Joint Exhibition winner.
MA in English, Melbourne University, 1978. Percival Serle Prize.
MPhil (Later Medieval English), Oxford University, 1980.

Key research

Research Interests

My main research and postgraduate supervision interests cover five fields, sometimes overlapping:

1. Medieval literature and culture in Europe, 1100-1500, with special reference to: romance, Arthurian literature; chivalric literature; Thomas Malory; Chaucer and clerkly poetry; the traditions and discourse of war and peace writing; literature and ideology; literature and gender; the emotions.

2. Medievalism in post-medieval literature and culture, c. 1800 to the present, original neo-medievalist literature and film.

3. Post-medieval reception of medieval literature, especially Arthurian, including editions, adaptations, critical responses, children's versions and

4. Modern Australian literature, with special reference to poetry; studies in Australian; medievalism; Australia and Empire.

5. Modern Irish literature.

Publications

Books

Malory's Book of Arms: The Narrative of Combat in Le Morte Darthur (Arthurian Studies 39), Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997; pp. 189.

Andrew Lynch and Philippa Maddern, eds. and intro., Venus and Mars: Engendering Love and War in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Nedlands, WA.: University Of Western Australia Press, 1995) pp. viii, 214.

Andrew Lynch and Anne M. Scott, eds. and intro., Renaissance Poetry and Drama in Context: Essays for Christopher Wortham. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

Book chapters

‘From Troy to Thebes: Manhood and Melancholy in John Lydgate’s War’, in Elizabeth Archibald and James Clark, eds, Troy and the European Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). [Accepted and forthcoming]

‘Animated Conversations in Nottingham: Disney's Robin Hood (1973)’, in Gail Ashton and Dan Kline, eds, Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). [Accepted and forthcoming]

‘Poetry and confessing: Francis Webb, Vincent Buckley and the case of Cardinal Mindszenty’, in Tanya Dalziell and Paul Genoni, eds, Telling Stories: Australian Literary Cultures 1935-2010, (Monash University Publishing, 2012) [Accepted and forthcoming]

"Genre, Bodies and Power in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and the South English Legendary' in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108. The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative, ed. K. K. Bell and J. N. Couch (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 177-96.

'Imperial Arthur: home and away', in Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter (eds), The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 171-200.

'Malory's Morte Darthur and History', in Helen Fulton (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Arthurian Literature. Oxford: Blackwell. 2009, pp. 297-311

'Love in Wartime. Troilus and Criseyde as Trojan History', in Corinne Saunders (ed.), A Concise Companion to Chaucer. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, pp. 113-133.
'Archaism, Nostalgia and Tennysonian War in The Lord of the Rings, in Jane Chance and Alfred Siewers, eds, Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 77-92. Reprinted in Harold Bloom, ed., J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: New York, 2008), pp. 101-115.

'"I see a strangeness": Francis Webb's Norfolk and English Catholic Medievalism', in Stephanie Trigg (ed.), Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture. Turnhout: Brepols; Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005, pp. 41-59.

'"Peace is good after war": The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition', in Corinne Saunders, Françoise Le Saux and Neil Thomas, eds, Writing War: Medieval Literary Responses to Warfare. Woodbridge. Boydell and Brewer, 2004, pp. 127-46.

'Le Morte Darthur for Children: Malory's Third Tradition', in Barbara Tepa Lupack, ed., Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 1-49.

'"Thou woll never have done": Ideology, Context and Excess in Malory's War', in D. Thomas Hanks Jr. and Jessica G. Brogdon, eds, The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory's Morte Darthur (Arthurian Studies 42), Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2000, pp. 24-41.

'"The hoote blood ran freyshly uppon the erthe": A combat theme in Malory, and its extensions', in Andrew Lynch and Philippa Maddern, eds., Venus and Mars: Engendering Love and War in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Nedlands, W.A.: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 88-105.

'Gesture and Gender in Malory's Le Morte Darthur', in Friedrich Wolfzettel, ed., Arthurian Romance and Gender (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1995) pp. 285-295.

"'Be war, ye wemen': problems of genre and the gendered audience in Chaucer and Henryson", in R.S.White and Hilary Fraser, eds, Constructions of Gender: Feminism and Literary Studies, Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1994, pp. 19-38.

Journal Articles

Andrew Lynch, 'Nostalgia and Critique: Walter Scott's "secret power"'. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 2.2, 2011, pp. 201-15.

Andrew Lynch, ‘I have so many truths to tell’: Randolph Stow’s Visitants and The Girl Green as Elderflower'. Australian Literary Studies, 26.1, 2011, pp. 20-32.

Andrew Lynch, 'King Arthur in Marvellous Melbourne: W. M. Akhurst's "burlesque extravaganzas"'. Australian Literary Studies, 26:3-4, 2011, pp. 45-57.

"…‘if indeed I go’": Arthur’s uncertain end in Malory and Tennyson’. Arthurian Literature, 27, 2010, pp. 19-31.

'Thingless names'? The St George legend in Australia'. LaTrobe Journal, 81 (Autumn 2008), pp. 40-52.

'C.J. Brennan's A Chant of Doom: Australia's Medieval War', Australian Literary Studies, 23.1 (2007), pp. 49-62.

'Beyond Shame: Chivalric Cowardice and Arthurian Narrative', Arthurian Literature, 23 (2006), pp. 1-17.

'A Tale of "Simple" Malory and the Critics', Arthuriana, 16.2 (2006): 10-15.

'"Manly cowardyse": Thomas Hoccleve's Peace Strategy', Medium Aevum, 53.2, 2004, pp. 306-23.

'Francis Webb's white swan of trespass: A Drum for Ben Boyd and Australian modernism in the 1940s', Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 36.1, June 2001, pp. 27-43.

'"The Terrible Knowledge That She Was Going To Go": History, Memory and Identity in Colm Toibin's The Heather Blazing.' Australian Journal of Irish Studies, 1, 2001, pp. 1-8.

'Malory Moralise: The Disarming of Le Morte Darthur, 1800-1918', Arthuriana, 9.4, 1999, pp. 81-93. (Winner of the James Randall Leeder Award for Outstanding Article in Arthuriana, 1999)

'Re-making the Middle Ages in Australia: Francis Webb's "The Canticle" (1953)', Australian Literary Studies, 19.1, 1999, pp. 44-56.

'"While I wrestled with the sum, the sun": Francis Webb's "Socrates"', Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 33(2), 1998, pp. 39-53.

'"Now, fye on youre wepynge": tears in medieval English romance', Parergon, New Series 9,1, June, 1991.

"Good name and narrative in Malory", Nottingham Medieval Studies, 1990, pp. 141-51.

Roles, responsibilities and expertise

Professor, English and Cultural Studies
Director, UWA Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Discipline Chair: Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Partner Investigator, ARC Centre fer the History of Emotions
President, Australian and New Zealand Branch of the International Arthurian Society

Future research

The emotions of war in medieval literature.
Popular medievalism

Funding received

Recent grants

2008-2011. ARC Discovery Project grant. 'Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory'. $338,463. Prof. S. J. Trigg (Melbourne); A/Prof A. L. Lynch (UWA); Dr L. D'Arcens (Wollongong); Prof. J. M. Ganim (UCLA, Riverside). PROJECT ID: DP0879058.

2010. $7500 grant from the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences for the Workshop 'Understanding Emotions: An Interdisciplinary Workshop'.

2010. Benjamin Meaker Fellowship, April-May 2010, University of Bristol.

2011. ARC CHE Partner Investigator. $3000 for research assistance and travel for the project ‘The medieval emotions of war’.

Industrial relevance

Member, Literature Curriculum Advisory Committee, Curriculum Council of WA

Editorial Boards: Arthuriana (USA); Arthurian Literature (UK); Chaucer Studio; (USA and Australia); Parergon (International Advisory Committee).


General Editor (with Dr Claire McIlroy)
Brepols (Belgium) ‘Early European Research’ book series.

Languages

English; French

Memberships

ANZAMEMS; New Chaucer Society; International Arthurian Society (ANZ Branch).

Honours and awards

James Randall Leader prize for outstanding article in Arthuriana, 1999.
UWA Excellence in Teaching Award for Postgraduate Supervision, 2004.

Teaching

Undergraduate units from Level 1 to Honours in medieval, early modern and modern literature, culture and thought
MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies – modules and co-ordination.
Live video-conference teaching of Arthurian Literature, UWA/University of Bristol, 2011.

New and noteworthy

Invited lectures, papers, workshops, and plenaries, 2010-12.

University of Wollongong, ‘Medievalism, Colonialism and Nationalism’ Symposium, January 18-20, 2010. ‘Going “home” by the Middle Ages: Randolph Stow’s The Girl Green as Elderflower and Visitants’.

University of Bristol Centre for Medieval Studies, April 29, 2010. ‘Genre, bodies and power in Bodleian Library Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and the South English Legendary’.

University of York Centre for Medieval Studies, May 5, 2010. University of Bristol Centre for Medieval Studies, April 29, 2010. ‘Genre, bodies and power in Bodleian Library Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and the South English Legendary’.

University of Durham Centre for Medieval Studies, May 11, 2010. "…‘if indeed I go’": Arthur’s uncertain end in Malory and Tennyson’.

University of Sydney. Arthurian Study Day, June 4, 2010. . "…‘if indeed I go’": Arthur’s uncertain end in Malory and Tennyson’.

Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, Three-day workshop, ‘The Lady of Shalott’, September 6-8, 2010. (Keynote).

Australian Academy of Social Sciences Workshop, 'Understanding Emotions: An Interdisciplinary Workshop', UWA, September 24-25, 2010. Respondent to Ottmar Lipp (UQ, Psychology): 'The status of the emotions in modern psychological research'.

Australian Early Medieval Association Conference, UWA, November 18-19, 2010, ‘Courage and cowardice in the literature of early medieval England’. (Keynote)

XXIII Triennial Congress of the International Arthurian Society, University of Bristol, 25-30 July, 2011. ‘Action and Emotion in the Arthurian World’. (Plenary)

‘Empire and Emotion’. ARC CHE symposium, University of Melbourne, March 16, 2012.

Current projects

Apart from work towards ARC-funded projects listed below, articles/chapters currently submitted or in preparation include:

Submitted chapter for refereed book
‘Guinevere and the boys: emotion and community in Chrétien de Troyes’, for Michael Champion, Andrew Lynch, Joanne McEwan, Philippa Maddern, eds, Understanding Emotions in the Medieval and Early Modern World.

Chapters for refereed books in preparation
‘"Good knights" and "holy men": exchanges of virtue in later medieval narrative’, for Anke Bernau and Eva von Contzen, eds., Sanctity and Literature (contracted, Manchester University Press)

‘Action and emotion in the Arthurian world’, for Frank Brandsma, Carolyne Larrington and Corinne Saunders, eds, Arthurian Emotion: Voice, Mind, Body.

'Swords in Stones / Ladies in Lakes: Arthurian popular culture and the right to rule’, for Louise D’Arcens and Andrew Lynch, eds, International Medievalism and Popular Culture.

Research profile

Research profile and publications