Dr Liam Lewis

PhD (Warwick)

Research

I'm a medievalist at Cardiff University and author of the book, Animal Soundscapes in Anglo-Norman Texts (D.S. Brewer, 2022), an in-depth study of animal noises in medieval literature written in English and French. My work focuses on medieval animal studies and the environmental humanities. I write about premodern concepts of nature and the environment, in particular in the following areas:

• Animals and companion species
• Medieval environmental studies
• Medievalism, peformance, and textual reception

Recently, I have been part of a large team working on the history of bear baiting in the British Isles and France. The team comprises archaeologists (zooarchaeology, biomolecular archaeology), literary historians and archivists, and performance practitioners including professional wrestlers. I am working with zooarchaeologist Professor Hannah O'Regan at the University of Nottingham to trace the medieval history of bears and exotic animals.

My next project is called Medieval Biophilia: Picturing Apocalypse in Manuscripts. This project considers how ecological crisis and sustainability are represented and told as stories in medieval manuscripts that feature motifs such as Creation, Doomsday and global flood, animal life and transformation, and human or supernatural management of the environment. My research looks into these themes in light of contemporary discussions in anthropology, ecocriticism, and the translation of science.

I am also interested in questions of sound and music, and poetry and performance, especially performance-as-research approaches to medieval song. 

Finally, I have a growing research focus in the reception of medieval ideas in contemporary culture, especially religion and spirituality. My project in this area focuses on medievalism in contemporary neopaganism.

Publications

MONOGRAPHS

• Animal Soundscapes in Anglo-Norman Texts (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), series: ‘Nature and Environment in the Middle Ages’.

ARTICLES 

• ‘The Evidence for Bear Baiting in Post-Conquest England and Northern France’, co-authored with Hannah O’Regan (forthcoming in Society and Animals).
• ‘Eko; Eko; Azarak’: Witchcraft, Medieval Gibberish and Queer Untranslatability in High Magic’s Aid’, in Special Edition, ‘Mainstreaming Queerness: The New Queer Vanguard’ (forthcoming in Sexualities).
• ‘Imaginaires de l’Apocalypse’, in ‘Urgence écologique: la recherche à l’épreuve’, Culture & Recherche, 145 (2024), 33-35.
• ‘‘Man spekeþ, bere brayeþ’: the Zoopoetics of Bear Roaring and Silence in the Middle Ages’, Nottingham French Studies, 62.3 (2024), 251–266.
  ‘Rewilding with the ‘Cri’ in Medieval French Texts: Yvain and Mélusine’, French Studies, 77.2 (Open Access, 2023), 167-182.
• ‘Noise on the Ocean Before ‘Pollution’: The Voyage of Saint Brendan’, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 30.1 (2023), 4-24.
• ‘Animal Umwelt and Sound Milieus in the Middle English Physiologus’, Exemplaria, 34.1 (Open Access, 2022), 24-39.

BOOK CHAPTERS 

• ‘Posthuman Bears: Agency in Premodern Bear Baiting in Britain’, in Oliver Grimm (ed.), Bear and Human: Facets of a Multi-Layered Relationship from Past to Recent Times with an Emphasis on Northern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, Open Access, 2023), pp. 175-186
• ‘Adeliza of Louvain: Patron’, in Danna Messer (ed), English Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty: Normans to Early Plantagenets (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), pp. 83-98.
• ‘Quacktrap: Glosses and Multilingual Animal Contact in the Tretiz by Walter of Bibbesworth’, in Vincent Debiais and Victoria Turner (eds), Les Mots au Moyen Age / Words in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 161–80.

PUBLIC-FACING ARTICLES

• ‘Wolfe Yollez’, The Learned Pig (for editorial season ‘Wolf Crossing’, 2017).

MONOGRAPH REVIEWS

• Paul Wackers, ‘Introducing the Medieval Fox’, Medium Aevum (forthcoming 2024).
• Jennifer Saltzstein, ‘Song, Landscape, and Identity in Medieval Northern France: Toward an Environmental History’, French Studies (2024).
• ‘Medieval Soundings: Hearing and Imagining Medieval Song’, review of Sarah Kay, ‘Medieval Song from Aristotle to Opera’, Sound Studies (2024).
• Sara Buekens and Julien Defraeye (eds.), ‘Animal et animalité. Stratégies de représentation dans les littératures d'expression française’, H-France Review (2023).
• Andrew Richmond, ‘Landscape in Middle English Romance: the Medieval Imagination and the Natural World’, Landscape History (2022).
• Alison Langdon (ed.), ‘Animal Languages in the Middle Ages: Representations of Interspecies Communication’, Medium Aevum (2021).
• Sarah Kay, ‘Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries’, French Studies, 72 (2018).
• Jameson S. Workman, ‘Chaucer and the Death of the Political Animal’, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 38 (2017).
• Miranda Griffin, ‘Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature’, French Studies, 70.3 (2016).

Teaching

Teaching at Cardiff

At Cardiff, I teach on the following modules:

• Monsters and Magic in Medieval Romance
• Transgressive Bodies in Medieval Literature
• English Dissertation

If you are a student at Cardiff and would like to write your dissertation with me, please get in touch.

Previous Teaching

At the University of Liverpool I taught the following modules: 

• Literature, Art, and Architecture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (MA)
• From Sheepskin to E-Reader: Books and Publishing in France
• Translation project
• Manger: Food and Culture
• Language Awareness
• ​Advanced, Intermediate, and Proficient French
• Introduction to French Studies 

At the University of Warwick I have taught on the following modules: 

• Medieval to Renaissance English Literature (English)
• Arthurian Literature and its Legacy (English)
• Animals in Medieval Literature (French)
• French Cultural Landmarks: Love, Language, Power (French)
• Modern French Translation (French)
• Qualitative Research Methods (Liberal Arts)
• Human-Animal Studies: An Interdisciplinary Module Exploring Animals in Society (Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning)

At the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, I taught as lecteur de langue anglaise for the Licence d'Anglais, the Licence Langues étrangères appliquées and the Concours d'Agrégation. I have taught on medieval French papers at the University of Oxford, where I lectured on the Chastelaine de Vergy and the History of the Book.

Biography

I took a PhD in French Studies at the University of Warwick in 2019, where I worked with Emma Campbell and Professor Christiania Whitehead.

Before coming to Cardiff, I was a Research Fellow in Animal History and Animal Studies on the Box Office Bears project at the University of Nottingham. In 2023 I was on placement at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Previous to my current role, I have taught at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle in Paris, the University of Oxford (Balliol College and St Hilda's College), and the University of Liverpool. 

Media appearances

In January 2022, I featured as a historical expert on the Channel 5 programme, No Place Like Home, on which I discussed bear history and the Great Fire of Nantwich with actor and comedian, Ben Miller.

Speaking engagements

Upcoming talks

• March 2025, Boston USA: Renaissance Society of America (RSA)
• 22 May 2025, Cambridge UK: Medieval Conversations: 'Is there a Medieval Biophilia?'

Committees and reviewing

Advisory Boards

• Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London

Editorial Boards

• French Studies journal
• Medieval Ecocriticisms journal

Supervisions

I would welcome research proposals on any of the following areas:

• Medieval English and French Literature (including Anglo-Norman)
• Animal Studies and Environmental History
• Theoretical and performance-led approaches to medieval literatures (anthropology, ecocriticism, song, theatre)
• Themes in the history and reception of medieval ideas in contemporary literature, including arthuriana, medievalism, and neopaganism

If you would like to discuss an MA, PhD, or postdoctoral research proposal (e.g. British Academy, Leverhulme, or AHRC-funded scheme), please get in touch at the earliest available opportunity.