Education

BA Hons McGill University; MA Queens University at Kingston; PhD University of Notre Dame

You’re arriving at an airport for a research trip and the border control agent asks what you do. How do you answer?

University Professor

What projects are you currently working on?

Narratives of Impassioned Things: Tales of Christian Passion Relics and Their Circulation in Muslim Contexts as told across a variety of genres (chronicles, romances, chansons de geste, letters); also a study of translation and manuscript form in a Middle English romance

What do you think is the best part of being a medievalist?

The colleagues! Also the opportunity to study and communicate some sense of the importance and appeal  of medieval texts and ideas to modern people and their concerns

Why did you join the CSM? What other societies do you belong to?

I joined the CSM to stand up and be counted as a medievalist working in Canada and to foster the study of the Middle Ages in Canada. Our membership numbers are annually reported to CFHSS, which lobbies the government for humanities and social sciences funding and to which most university administrators belong. If I want medieval studies to be identified as a vibrant avenue of scholarly investigation, study and teaching at administrative and bureaucratic levels in Canada (which I do), then the CSM is the main organization to belong to.  I also think it is a great chance to meet medievalists from many disciplines across Canada and share both research interests/work AND the lived experiences of medievalists navigating political and bureaucratic policies and trends in Canada. I also belong to the Medieval Academy, the MLA, The International Arthurian Society (North American Branch), the New Chaucer Society, and the Early English Text Society

Where can we find/read some of your work?

http://carleton.ca/english/people/bly-calkin-siobhain/ or www.academia.edu