{"id":1703,"date":"2009-11-02T13:47:43","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T17:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=1703"},"modified":"2025-10-29T11:28:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:28:27","slug":"bly-calkin-siobhain","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/bly-calkin-siobhain\/","title":{"rendered":"Siobhain Bly Calkin"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"research-interests\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Medieval Literature (especially Middle English)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Crusading Texts<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Medieval Romances<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Chaucer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Manuscript Culture and Book History<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Vernacularity and Translation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thing Theory, Materialism, and Form<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"current-research\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Current Research<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I am intrigued by the ways in which medieval texts circulated, and by their cultural engagements with the world that produced and consumed them. Medieval depictions of cross-cultural contact, conflict and conquest, especially across religious lines, also fascinate me and have been the focus of much of my research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"994\" height=\"1500\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/11\/Saracens-and-the-Making-of-English-Identity-Calkin.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27542\" style=\"width:194px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/11\/Saracens-and-the-Making-of-English-Identity-Calkin.jpg 994w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/11\/Saracens-and-the-Making-of-English-Identity-Calkin-512x773.jpg 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/11\/Saracens-and-the-Making-of-English-Identity-Calkin-320x483.jpg 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/11\/Saracens-and-the-Making-of-English-Identity-Calkin-768x1159.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My first book, <em>Saracens and the Making of English Identity<\/em> (Routledge 2005; paperback 2009) and many of my articles discuss the depictions of Muslims in late medieval English texts and their relation to ideas of nationalism, chivalry, violence, and crusade. Questions about manuscript culture, its fluidity, and the reception of antecedent texts also animate much of my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am currently finishing up a book entitled&nbsp;<em>Narratives of Impassioned Things: <\/em><em>Rethinking Relic Agency through Tales of the Lance of Antioch and the Cross of Jerusalem<\/em><em>.&nbsp;<\/em>It examines English, French and Latin crusading narratives produced between 1095 and 1500CE, studying how such texts illuminate late medieval Christian ideas about the ways in which devotional objects manifest agency in multicultural contexts. I am particularly interested in the theological and cultural challenges encountered when medieval writers narrate episodes (whether lived or imagined) about Christian relics manifesting power in contexts of Muslim-Christian encounter and Muslim disbelief. This research has led me into a sustained consideration of thing theory, medieval materialism, and the ways in which culturally significant objects structure and inform the human subjects around them in multifaceted and multidirectional ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"honours-and-awards\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Honours and Awards<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Carleton University, Marston LaFrance Research Fellowship 2025-26<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Carleton University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Excellence Award, 2018-19<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>SSHRCC Insight Grant 2014-20<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Carleton University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Award, 2014<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"selected-recent-publications\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Selected Recent Publications<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Co-editor with Matthew Aiello, Special Issue: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/eprint\/I95JYIPIQDX3YCSGHR7U\/full?target=10.1080\/10412573.2025.2464428\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Retracing Trauma\u2019s Theories in Premodern Literature<\/a>,\u201d <em>Exemplaria<\/em> 37.1 (2025). DOI: 10.1080\/10412573.2025.2464428<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1215\/10829636-11130370\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Passion Relic Devotion, an Implanted Relic, and a Prostheticized Body: Rethinking Matter and Agency in \u2018A Grete Myracle of a Knyghte Good Callyd Syr Roger Wallysborow\u2019<\/a>,\u201d <em>Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies <\/em>54.2 (2024): 299-332.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Co-author with Danielle Taylor, \u201cCrusades.\u201d In <em>The Chaucer Encyclopedia, <\/em>edited by Richard Newhauser et al., vol. 2. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub\/relictalesadescriptivecatalogue\/\"><em>Relic Tales: A Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval Narratives Recounting the Circulation of Christian Passion Relics in Mixed Muslim-Christian Contexts.<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;Co-authored with Hisham Al Khatib and Danielle Taylor. Released: February 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/10412573.2021.1893088\">Narrating Trauma? Captured Cross Relics in Chronicles and&nbsp;<em>chansons de geste,<\/em><\/a>\u201d&nbsp;<em>Exemplaria&nbsp;<\/em>33.1 (2021): 19-43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"recent-papers-presented\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Papers Presented<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCelebrating the Thingly Affordances of Passion Relics in Muslim-Christian Contexts,\u201d New Chaucer Society, 23<sup>rd<\/sup> Biennial Congress, Pasadena, USA, July 15-18, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTips on Publishing Articles: A Scholar\u2019s Perspective,\u201d Canadian Society of Medievalists \/ Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 canadienne des m\u00e9di\u00e9vistes Annual Congress, York University, Toronto, Ontario, May 27-29, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSpeaking Devotional Instruction Across Religious Divides: The \u2018Four sar\u021dins\u2019 from&nbsp;<em>Ethiopia in Bible Anonyme<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Cursor Mundi<\/em>,\u201d New Chaucer Society, 22nd Biennial Congress, University of Durham, Durham, UK, July 11-15, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNarratives of Seeking: Rethinking Theoretical Models of How Trauma Manifests Textually,\u201d 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-14, 2022. Online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat Happens When Skin Meets Cross-Wood? Changes in Skin Colour and Constructions of Whiteness, Blackness, and Religious Devotion in&nbsp;<em>Cursor Mundi,<\/em>\u201d Approaches to Skin in Literature and Culture, Virtual Workshop, University of Bern and University of Surrey, June 10-11, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"research-papers-and-theses-supervised\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Research Papers and Theses Supervised<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Danielle Taylor, (Ph. D)&nbsp;<em>Fraternity and Governance in Fifteenth-Century English Literature,<\/em>&nbsp;2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alicia Haniford, (MA) \u201cNegotiating Narrative Constructs of Past and Present in&nbsp;<em>Bevis of Hampton<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Guy of Warwick<\/em>,\u201d 2020 (University Medal)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande, (MA) \u201cTo Be(Head) or Not to Be(Head): Decapitation in&nbsp;<em>Richard Coer de Lyon,<\/em>\u201d 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Francine Harris, (MA) \u201cThe Identity-defining Role of Forgetting in Transformative Disguise in two Middle English Romances:&nbsp;<em>Havelok the Dane<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Sir Isumbras<\/em>,\u201d 2018 (Senate Medal)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Montana McLaughlin Tom, (MA) \u201cWord and Image in the Ellesmere Manuscript and Two Later Versions of Chaucer\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Canterbury Tales<\/em>\u201d 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Polina Svadkovskaia, (MA) \u201cGendered Space and Power Symbol: Imagining the Castle in Middle English Romance,\u201d 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27596,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Siobhain","cu_people_last_name":"Bly Calkin","cu_people_initials":"SB","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-1703","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-professors"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Associate Professor","cu_people_degree":"B.A. Honours (McGill), M.A. (Queen's), Ph.D. (Notre Dame)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"siobhain.calkin@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"2337","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/1703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/1703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27564,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/1703\/revisions\/27564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=1703"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=1703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}