Funded by
Dr F Colman
Reader in English Language, University of Edinburgh
On Proper Names: Their Place in Philological and Linguistic Analysis (with special reference to Old English Personal Names)
The aim of Dr Colman’s research is to work on a book evaluating the place of proper names in general, and early Old English names in particular, in philological and linguistic analysis. Old English personal names have a unique value as a source of linguistic evidence, in that they were formed from elements cognate with (a subset of) common words. Therefore, just as spelling variation in the representation of Old English common words is interpreted as potential evidence of phonological variation (diachronic or diatopic), so may be variation in the spelling of proper names. Building on her past work to establish and refine a methodology for linguistic analyses of personal name-forms on late (11th century) Anglo-Saxon coins, focussing mainly on epigraphy, phonology and morphology, Dr Colman's proposal is to undertake similarly focussed research into the names on early (8th and 9th century) Anglo-Saxon coins, and also to extend the research to include grammatical behaviour of Old English personal names. As well as constituting a significant contribution to reconstructing the history of English and to onomastic theory, this research will also be of benefit to numismatists and historians.
Professor I Hampsher-Monk
Professor of Political Theory, University of Exeter
The Political Thought of Edmund Burke
Professor Hampsher-Monk’s research aims to provide a new historical interpretation of the political thought of Edmund Burke. This essentially historical work seeks to identify the sources deployed by Burke in his mature political philosophy and to show how he synthesised these into a new language of politics. This historical interpretation would then inform a more analytical study directed at understanding his relationship to other thinkers and his role in the emergence of modern political thought, and the character of his thought in relation to the latter.
Dr S J Harrison
Reader in Social Anthropology, University of Ulster
Cultural Boundaries
The scheme of research proposed by Dr Harrison is for a monograph on ‘Cultural Boundaries’ which will examine the role played by ideas of cultural boundaries in the construction of ethnic and national identities. The monograph will be based on a comparative analysis of a number of case studies selected from the anthropological literature on ethnicity and nationalism worldwide. Its aim will be to ascertain the circumstances in which ethnic and nationalist communities employ particular kinds of cultural boundary discourses, and the circumstances in which such communities represent themselves as having more or less open cultural boundaries.
Professor H M Hine
Professor of Humanity, University of St Andrews
A Comparative Study of the Language and Style of the Prose and Verse Writings of the Younger Seneca
Professor Hine’s project aims to adopt a new approach to the study of Seneca, by making a comparative study of the language and style of his prose and verse works in parallel, in order to show the similarities and differences between his prose and his verse, and the relationship of his usage in each area to that of earlier writers. The study will also address questions about the best way to categorise and describe the different linguistic and stylistic registers of Latin prose and verse, and about the presence of poetic elements in Seneca's prose.
Dr I J Leslie
Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Self-Directed Violence: Indian Tradition and Practice
The present-day medical view, both in India (allopathy) and in the ‘West’, regards suicide as psychopathology of paramount significance. Assessing and quantifying suicidal risk and responsibility for preventing suicide are among the highest priorities for psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, physicians and other professionals. Suicide represents a failure of medical intervention, raising questions of clinical error. Suicide is not identified, however, as a significant clinical problem for traditional medical systems in India, such as Ayurveda; instead the issue is discussed in the socio-religious literature. Dr Leslie’s study, an extension of a joint project already begun with Professor M G Weiss (Director of the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel, Switzerland), examines the cultural forms of suicide in India with reference to the distinctive orientations represented in the classical traditions where data are available, and considers how these representations might be linked to a social understanding of suicide in the present day. It also asks how an examination of cultural forms from classical and current vantage points may each mutually enrich our understanding of the other.
Dr L Pratt
Lecturer in Romantic Period Literature, The Queen's University of Belfast
Robert Southey: Poetical Works, 1793–1810
Dr Pratt’s edition of Robert Southey’s Poetical Works, 1793–1810 will be the first modern edition of the poetry of one of the most important and hitherto neglected writers working in Britain in the Romantic period. It will fill an enormous gap in current knowledge and be a major, highly distinctive contribution to the field of British Romanticism. Dr Pratt is the General Editor of the five volume project, to be published by Pickering and Chatto, and is personally responsible for three of the five volumes. The Senior Research Fellowship will enable her to work on two of these volumes, Madoc and Shorter Poems and Plays, 1793–1810. Each volume will be prefaced by an essay setting the poems within their critical, literary and historical contexts. Further literary, political, historical and personal references will be identified in footnotes to individual works. A distinctive feature of the edition will be its thoroughgoing textual and critical reassessment of Southey's achievements as a writer. The two volumes to be completed during the Fellowship are central to the whole project.
Professor T A Reuter
Professor of Medieval History, University of Southampton
An Edition of the Letter-Book of Abbot Wibald of Stavelot and Corvey
The letter-book of Abbot Wibald of Stavelot and Corvey (1098–1158) contains some 450 items from the period 1146–1157, and is not only a major source for the political, ecclesiastical and cultural history of the Reich in the early Staufer era, but also the largest letter-book from the high middle ages to survive as an original manuscript. Professor Reuter’s aim is to complete a modern scholarly edition of the letter-collection, to be published by the MGH. He has already been working on this edition and has an established text and apparatus. The award will enable him to work further on the annotation, introduction and a full palaeographical study of the original manuscript (now in LiPge). He also aims to complete associated studies: on the dating of the letters, on the make-up of the manuscript, and on a small number of issues in the commentary which require fuller treatment than will be possible in a footnote.