Speaker: David Townsend, English and Medieval Studies, U of T., Wednesday Talk: January 21, 2026, 2pm-4pm, Faculty Club and Zoom – hybrid
January 21 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Speaker: David Townsend, English and Medieval Studies, U of T.
Title: “Imagination, Historical Knowledge, and Public Discourse”
Abstract: Guilty pleasure or serious cultural work? Academics have vexed relationships with historical fiction. If we cross over to writing it ourselves (as some of us do), how do we understand the enterprise? What is the relationship of evidence to imagination, and of research to pedagogy and to the work of popularization? And is there an ethics of the way we bring popular attention to the past?
David Townsend will talk about these issues as they play out in several medieval historical novels, by way of introducing and reading from his own recently published book: The Ram in the Thicket imagines the world of the Julian of Norwich, late in her life in 1413.
Bio: David retired in 2018 as Professor of Medieval Studies and English, after thirty-three years of teaching medieval literature and languages. His academic publications have included the close textual work of editions and translations, as well as interpretive studies often centering on questions of gender and sexuality. His most recent academic monograph is Queering Medieval Latin Rhetoric: Silence, Subversion, and Sexual Heterodoxy (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He also taught graduate seminars on Middle English and medieval Latin devotional literatures.
The link to register is https://forms.office.com/r/3TwBqrUTQi
The deadline to register is the Monday before the event at noon. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
If you have any questions, please contact the organizer, Linda Hutcheon at l.hutcheon@utoronto.ca.
