Sutton Trust Summer School 2015

From 18 - 21 August, the Department will be hosting its annual Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic. The Summer School is held in association with the Sutton Trust, a philanthropic organisation which seeks to promote social mobility through education. Ten teenagers from non-privileged backgrounds will be spending a week in the Department, experiencing lectures, seminars and classes in the whole range of ASNC subjects.

Departmental Open Day 2013

The annual ASNC Departmental Open Day will take place on Wednesday 26th June. Booking is essential, and further details on the structure of the day and how to reserve a place are available here.

Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC 2013

Applications are now open for the 2013 Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, which will take place during the week of 26th - 30th August. The Summer School provides an opportunity for Year 12 pupils from non-privileged backgrounds to experience life at Cambridge. Participants will stay at St John's College, and will have the chance to take part in a range of lectures, classes and seminars on various aspects of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic languages, literature, and history. All costs are covered by the Sutton Trust. For more details about Sutton Trust Summer Schools at Cambridge, see the university's webpages. For more about the ASNC Summer School, see here. Or watch what one previous participant had to say about his experience:

Applications can be made through the Sutton Trust website. The deadline for applications is 11th March. Many of our current undergraduates first experienced ASNC through a Sutton Trust Summer School; other participants have simply enjoyed the opportunity to experience a week of interdisciplinary study completely unlike anything they've ever done at school.

ASNC on Youtube

Just in case you're still wondering what we're all about:

 

Outreach and widening participation

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

Applications are now open for our annual Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, which will take place on 13th-17th August. The Sutton Trust is an organisation which seeks to promote social mobility through education, and each year participants in our Summer School are given the opportunity to experience life as a Cambridge undergraduate: staying in a College, attending lectures and seminars, and receiving one-to-one or small group 'supervisions' on the languages, literatures, and history of medieval Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. More information on how to apply is available via the University's webpages.

The Summer School is only a small part of the work we do to promote wider engagement with ASNC particularly, and medieval studies more generally. In recent months, for example, I have given various lectures in Cambridge to groups of pupils visiting from Langdon School, East Ham, and from Westminster Academy; I also headed to Dormers Wells High School, London, to give lectures on medieval Irish literature to students drawn from the Borough of Ealing's 'gifted and talented' programme; and last October, I gave a lecture on the historical Macbeth as part of the University of Cambridge's 'inspiring ideas' series. In all cases, I was overwhelmed by the natural enthusiasm shown by the students for medieval studies, despite the fact that most of them had not encountered medieval history or literature as part of their school curriculum.

Giving a lecture to secondary school pupils (and their teachers) on the real Macbeth

So, if you are a Year 12 pupil who is interested in the medieval world, and who attends a state school, please consider applying for a place on the Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC. Each year, these Summer Schools give students the confidence to apply for a place at Cambridge, or at other leading universities: it could be a life-changing experience for you too.

Cultures in Contact: Conference for Teachers interested in the Medieval World

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

On Saturday 14th January, just before the return of our students and the beginning of the new term, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic welcomed sixty school teachers, from all over the country, for a one-day conference on the theme of 'Cultures in Contact'. The conference sought to present to teachers working in a variety of disciplines (History, English Literature, Classics and Religious Studies were all well-represented), and at a variety of schools, some of the cutting-edge research being undertaken in the Department, with the general aim of drawing attention to the richness and diversity of medieval studies (now often sadly neglected in the GCSE and A Level curricula). The conference - which was fully booked well in advance (and, indeed, was over-subscribed) - featured the following papers:

Dr Andrew Bell - 'Thinking about early medieval Europe'

Dr Richard Dance - 'Roots, blends and buttocks: finding the Vikings in the English language'

Professor Simon Keynes & Dr Rory Naismith - 'Money talks: wealth and power in Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia

Dr Paul Russell - 'Reading Ovid in medieval Wales'

Dr Elizabeth Boyle - 'From Shakespeare to Tennyson: Celtic influences in English literature'

The day concluded with a Q&A session, which covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from aspects of the University's admissions process to themes which had emerged from the papers earlier that day. Having received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the teachers who participated - and having been delighted at their enthusiasm for, and interest in, all things medieval - we certainly hope to repeat the event in future years.

The Department would like to say an enormous 'thank you' to Dr Denis Casey for co-ordinating the event so efficiently, and to our departmental secretary, Mrs Jayne Riley, for her invaluable support.

Widening participation

As part of the University of Cambridge's ongoing commitment to widening participation in higher education, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic runs a summer school in association with the Sutton Trust. In these 60-second videos, some of last year's participants talk about their experiences studying ASNC.

ASNC Open Day 2011

The next ASNC Open Day will take place on 29th June. All those interested in applying to study ASNC - and their parents/guardians - are welcome, but booking is essential: further details and the booking form can be found on the ASNC website. Lecturers in ASNC will give brief introductory talks on aspects of the ASNC Tripos, and there will be a visit to the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, to see some Anglo-Saxon and Celtic manuscripts.

Dr Fiona Edmonds addresses a previous Open Day audience

Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

In 2011 the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will once again be running a Summer School in association with the Sutton Trust. This year the Summer School will take place from 22nd - 26th August. More details can be found via the University's Summer School pages, and in the film below, which features participants from last year's Summer School in ASNC:

Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

From 17th - 20th August, the ASNC Department hosted our first Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic. The students who took part came from state schools all over the country, from Barnsley to Ross-on-Wye, Stockport to Peterborough, in order to experience life as an undergraduate at Cambridge. The School began with an introduction to Anglo-Saxon History from Prof. Simon Keynes, followed by an introduction to the Vikings from our Head of Department, Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh. As in the case of real undergraduate study, the information gained in these lectures was then consolidated in small-group supervisions on Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age History, led by PhD students and Junior Research Fellows in the ASNC Department. In the afternoon, Dr Richard Dance introduced the students to the basics of the Old English and Old Norse languages, and again this was consolidated in supervisions which focused on Old English and Old Norse literature.

The second day began with an introduction to medieval Welsh language and literature from Dr Paul Russell. This involved lessons in how to hang a mouse in medieval Welsh (and if this makes no sense to you, I suggest you read the Mabinogi). Afterwards, I gave a seminar on medieval Irish literature, which included some lively discussion on the 'Death of Conchobar'. In the afternoon the students were given a research assignment in the reading room of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, which resulted in some superb presentations on some of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval Welsh manuscripts in the Parker collection. The students then had the opportunity to see at first hand the manuscripts they had researched and spoken about.

The final morning included a lecture from Dr Fiona Edmonds on cultural contacts in early medieval Britain and Ireland, followed by supervisions on Celtic History led by post-doctoral researchers in the ASNC Department. The Summer School ended with a session on university admissions, applying to Cambridge, and opportunities for studying medieval culture more widely, which was led by Dr Andrew Bell, an Anglo-Saxon historian who is also Admissions Tutor at Gonville & Caius College. The aim of the Summer School was to offer students a taste of life as an ASNC undergraduate at Cambridge: the disciplinary breadth of the Department is such that the students got an intensive, whistle-stop tour of medieval languages, literature, history and palaeography over the course of a few brief days, but they were unflagging in their enthusiasm, their ability and their dedication. We hope that the Summer School will inspire all the participants to go on to university and to further their interest in the medieval world.

ASNC Open Day

On 23rd June ASNC welcomed more than sixty potential applicants and their parents to our departmental Open Day, which was held in the English Faculty Building on West Road and in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College. Senior members of the ASNC Department gave short talks on the various papers available to our undergraduates, from Old Norse to Palaeography, Celtic Philology to Anglo-Saxon History. There were also talks on various aspects of the University's admissions process. After that, our visitors had the opportunity to see a number of Anglo-Saxon and medieval Welsh manuscripts at the Parker Library, including the Corpus Glossary (an early ninth-century manuscript containing a glossary in Latin and Old English, which provides some of the earliest evidence for the Old English language), the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a Latin copy of the medieval Welsh law texts known as Cyfraith Hywel.

CCCC MS 197B, an eighth-century gospelbook (image from http://parkerweb.stanford.edu)

In addition to our departmental Open Day, we also had a stand in the Law Faculty at the main University Open Days (on 1st and 2nd July), and over the course of those two days dozens more potential applicants dropped in to the Department to find out about what we do. We hope that many of the people who visited us over the course of the Open Days will be joining the Department as new undergraduates in October 2011.

Cath Cnucha: a twenty-first century adaptation

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting pupils from the City of London Academy – Islington and the Central Foundation Boys’ School who came to Corpus Christi College to find out about university life, and about applying to study at Cambridge. After a series of events and lunch organised by Corpus's Admissions Tutor, Dr Melanie Taylor, I had the opportunity to offer pupils a taster lecture, so that they could experience one of the more unusual subjects one can study at Cambridge, namely Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic.

Some of the wonderful pupils from the Central Foundation Boys' School

We discussed some ideas about 'translation', and how the act of translating an historical source can break down barriers, both linguistic and cultural, and shed new light on the past. But we also talked about the way one chooses to translate a text, and how that can open up the text to new audiences (both Ciaran Carson's translation of The Táin [Penguin: 2007] and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf [Faber & Faber: 2002] are good examples of this).

Creative talents from City of London Academy - Islington

ASNCs set York alight (literally)

ELB writes:

On Saturday 20th March, members of the ASNC Department were in York to hold a one-day conference on The Early Medieval World, aimed at Year 11 and 12 pupils and their teachers. Despite a slightly inauspicious start, involving a fire in the pub in which we were drinking the night before, and a fire alarm in the early hours of the morning at our hotel, the event itself proved to be a massive success. More than one hundred pupils and teachers - largely from schools in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire, although some had come from London, and even as far afield as Dover - gathered at St Peter's School (we loved the ASNC connection - the school even claims Alcuin as a past headmaster!) for a day of mini-lectures on themes as diverse as cultural contacts in early medieval Yorkshire to the historical Macbeth.

St Peter's School, York, who hosted our event superbly.

Dr Andrew Bell, Tutor for Admissions at Gonville and Caius College, began the day with a talk on 'Thinking about Early Medieval Europe' which addressed wide historical themes, and various approaches to early medieval history. Next, Dr Fiona Edmonds, Lecturer in Celtic History, outlined evidence for British-speaking communities in Anglo-Saxon England as late as the eighth century. Fiona focused particularly on Yorkshire and Lancashire, and engaged the interest of the audience by using toponymic evidence from their own localities to support the argument for a continued British presence well into the Anglo-Saxon period.

After lunch, Dr Debby Banham, an expert in Anglo-Saxon diet, farming and medicine, gave a fascinating insight into everyday life in Anglo-Saxon England, touching on diet, clothing, and shelter. Dr Richard Dance, Senior Lecturer in Old English Language and Literature, gave the audience a highly entertaining, and interactive, introduction to the Old English and Old Norse languages. Lastly, I spoke on medieval Gaelic influences in modern English literature, focusing on the historical Macbeth. A quick glance at the feedback questionnaires suggest that there was a universally positive response to the day, with many pupils and teachers lamenting the fact that they have no opportunity to study medieval history or literature at GCSE or 'A' Level.

The Department would like to say a massive thank you to the two undergraduates, Albert Fenton and Rebecca Wilkinson, who came to York with us, and who spoke to many of the young people who attended, offering them information on everything from university applications to life as an ASNC. They were brilliant, enormously helpful and unfailingly enthusiastic. Thanks guys!

Upcoming events

Forthcoming events in the ASNC department:

• The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will take place on Saturday 27th February. This event is aimed at postgraduate students, and other interested scholars. Registration costs £5: see the website for further details.
• On 11th March, Prof. Joseph Falaky Nagy (UCLA) will deliver the 2010 H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture on 'Merchants of Myth in Ancient and Medieval Celtic Traditions', in Room GR.06 of the English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge, at 5pm. This is a public lecture; all welcome. The lecture will be followed by a wine reception.
• Applications close on 12th March for the ASNC Summer School, run in assocation with the Sutton Trust, which is aimed at year 12 pupils, and which will take place 17th-20th August 2010. For further information on eligibility and how to apply, see the University webpage.
• On 20th March, the ASNC schools event, The Early Medieval World, will take place at St Peter's School, York. This is aimed at pupils in years 11 and 12, and their teachers. For further information about registering for this event see the programme.

Schools event: The Early Medieval World

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will be invading York on 20th March, for a one-day event aimed at Year 11 and 12 students and their teachers. The conference, for which there is no charge (lunch and refreshments provided too!), is entitled The Early Medieval World, and will be held at St Peter's School, York. This event is being arranged for students who might be interested in studying medieval history, languages and/or literature at university, but have not had the opportunity to explore such things at school and would like to find out more about them. Topics to be covered range from multi-culturalism in early medieval Yorkshire to medieval Celtic influences on English literature from Shakespeare to Tennyson. Further information can be found in the conference programme.

In August 2010, the Department will be hosting a Summer School in association with The Sutton Trust. The aim of the Summer School is to give Year 12 pupils an insight into the life of a Cambridge undergraduate - participants stay in a College, attend classes and lectures, and take part in social activities - and it is particularly aimed at those who attend state schools without a tradition of sending students to Oxford or Cambridge. The ASNC Summer School will offer participants the opportunity to learn about the history, languages and literatures taught in the Department and to attend lectures given by leading historians and literary scholars. Students will also get a chance to see Anglo-Saxon and Celtic manuscripts at first hand during a visit to the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College. For more information, see the Cambridge University Summer School webpages.