The Department hosts, or is affiliated with, a number of research seminars, memorial lectures and other events that are held throughout the year. A list of events being held this term can be found below:

Michaelmas Term 2024

Please note that, unless otherwise stated, events will be in-person only in the English Faculty Building.

Future Events

Lent Term 2025

  • 24 January 2025, Research Seminar: Geneviève Young (King’s College London), title to be confirmed
  • 3 February 2025, Graduate Seminar: Kate Sykes, Spiritual Kinship in Early Medieval England
  • 17 February 2025, Graduate Seminar: Simon Rodway, Germanic in pre-Roman Britain: A Critical Examination of the Evidence
  • 21 February 2025, Research Seminar: Jenyth Evans (Oxford), title to be confirmed
  • 3 March 2025, Graduate Seminar: Kevin Murray, Beginning at the End: the Creation of Acallam na Senórach
  • 14 or 21 March 2025, Research Seminar: James Miller (British School at Rome), date and title to be confirmed
  • 20 March 2025, The 2025 H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture: Professor Fiona Edmonds (Lancaster), title to be confirmed

Easter Term 2025

  • 1 May 2025, The 2025 Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture: Professor David Stifter (Maynooth), title to be confirmed
  • 2 May 2025, Research Seminar: François-e Charmaille (Cambridge), title to be confirmed
  • 12 May 2025, Graduate Seminar: Svante Fischer, Before Beowulf: Migration Period Scandinavia and the Fall of the Roman Empire
  • 19 May 2025, Graduate Seminar: Thomas Clancy, Sofia Evelmalm-Graham and Alasdair White, Iona's Namescape

Further Information

For more information on each series of events, including future events scheduled to take place this academic year, please click on the individual links below. For previous major events held in the Department, please click here.

 

H.M. Chadwick Lectures

The H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture is held annually at the end of Lent term. The next lecture will be given by Professor Fiona Edmonds on 20 March 2025. Further information about the series can be found here. For details on how to purchase pamphlets from the lecture series, please click here.

Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lectures

The Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture is held annually at the beginning of Easter Term. The next Hughes Lecture will be given by Professor David Stifter on 1 May 2025. Further information about the series can be found here. The Hughes Memorial lectures are published jointly by Hughes Hall and the Department in April each year.

E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures

The E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture is held annually at the end of the Michaelmas Term. The next Quiggin Lecture will be given by Professor Dr Lena Rohrbach on 5 December 2024. Further information about the series can be found here. To purchase pamphlets from the lecture series, please click here.

Cambridge Festival

Further details to be published shortly.

ASNC Graduate Seminars

The Graduate Seminar meets regularly in all three terms. It provides a forum for current PhD students in their second or higher year to talk about their research, and to engage in discussion with all of the graduate students (MPhil and PhD) and the senior members. On special occasions it meets to hear papers given by leading academics from Cambridge and elsewhere. Further information on future events scheduled for this academic year can be found here.

ASNC Research Seminars

The ASNC Research Seminar is a forum for graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and senior members of the ASNC department to hear research papers by new leaders in the field. The seminar meets fortnightly during term-time, usually on Friday evenings at 5pm. The seminar is open for all members of the university to attend. Further information on future events scheduled for this academic year can be found here.

CCASNC (Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic)

The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (CCASNC) was held for the first time in 2000. It is organised by the graduate students in the Department. A plenary paper is given by an invited speaker, generally from outside the University, and shorter papers are given by graduate students from Cambridge and elsewhere, on the designated theme. The proceedings are published in Quaestio Insularis. Further information on the Colloquium can be found here, and for details on how to purchase copies of Quaestio Insularis please click here.

ASNC Alumni Reunion

Every year the Department hosts an alumni reunion during September, usually scheduled to coincide with the University Alumni weekend. The event provides an opportunity to meet and catch-up with fellow students and staff and to see some friendly faces. Some of the current graduate students are also invited along to speak about the research they are conducting within the Department. Details of previous events can be found here and information on donating to the Department can also be found if you click here.

The Clemoes Reading Prize

Peter Clemoes was Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (1969-82). He was an enthusiastic reader and ‘performer’ of Old English poetry, and often participated in readings from ‘The Battle of Maldon’ on the site of the battle itself (the mainland opposite Northey Island in the Blackwater estuary, Essex). The Clemoes Reading Prize was established in his memory. The annual Prize is open to all junior members of the University. Competitors select a short passage in any of the languages taught by the ASNC Department (Old English, Old Norse, Insular Latin, Medieval Irish, Medieval Welsh, Medieval Cornish or Medieval Breton), submit to the Department a written translation into modern English and for the competition read or perform the piece. The total prize fund is £350, to be awarded as the judges determine. The readings take place in May and further details will be published closer to the date.

 

Past Events

Cambridge Festival of Ideas

The annual Cambridge Festival of Ideas celebrated the rich contribution the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences make to our culture and showcases the huge breadth of research at the University of Cambridge and beyond. The Festival included a huge array of free activities for all ages, from inspiring, thought-provoking evening lectures and panel discussions to music, theatre and art sessions, department open days and school visits. 2019 was the twelfth year of the Festival and the theme was Change. The Department contributed with a variety of events. From 2020-21, the festival has been merged with the annual Cambridge Science Festival to become simply the 'Cambridge Festival'; further details on which can be found above.

ASNC Departmental Conference 2016

Writing History: Battles and the Shaping of the North Atlantic World has been a series of three conferences focusing on a group of military encounters and their protagonists from a millennium ago (1014 - 1016), which took place in the broad of the North Atlantic World (Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia). In our elucidation of the historiography of conflict of a particular time and region, we will also seek to highlight the universal features of writing war and each conference will include a modern perspective.

The third and final conference '1016, England and the Wider World' took place 16 April 2016. Speakers included Simon Keynes on Æthelred the Unready, Alex Woolf on the House of Bamburgh, Caroline Brett on Brittany, Elizabeth Ashman Rowe on the Danish of the Vikings raids on England, and Levi Roach on German dimensions. Continuing the pattern established in the last two conferences of looking to a more recent anniversary, there was a special lecture from Professor Robert Tombs commemorating events a hundred years ago.