Professor Penny Eley

Professor of Medieval French

Telephone: (0114) 222 4895

Qualifications

MA, Oxford; PhD, University of Wales, Cardiff; MEd (Information Technology), University of Sheffield

Biography

After graduating from Somerville College, Oxford, I spent two years working in education administration before doing my Ph. D. at University College, Cardiff on the portrayal of the heroine in 12th- and early 13th-century French narrative. I then spent two years as a Killam Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, working on Old French Troy stories. It was during this time that I became interested in Québécois and Acadian literature. After a further year as University of Wales Research Fellow at University College Swansea, I became a lecturer in French at Sheffield in 1984, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1995, to Reader in 2002 and Appointed to a Personal Chair in 2006.

Research interests

My research focuses on Old French narrative from the 12th and (on occasion) 13th centuries, particularly non-Arthurian romance and vernacular historiography.

My current areas of interest include the works of Benoît de Sainte-Maure and Hue de Rotelande; the anonymous romance of Partonopeus de Blois, and the short Ovidian narratives Piramus et Tisbé and Narcisus et Dané.

Professional activities

Founder member of the Editorial Board of Reinvention: A Journal of Undergraduate Research(2007)
Member of the Advisory Panel for Romance Studies and specialist referee for French Studies Bulletin, Nottingham Medieval Studies, Modern Philology, Modern Language Review
Reviewer for book proposals for Routledge, Boydell and Brewer, Hodder Arnold
External examiner for undergraduate programmes at the University of Liverpool (2004-2008) and the University of Wales, Swansea (2001-2004)
External examiner for PhD theses at Cambridge, Liverpool and King's College London
President of the British Branch of the International Courtly Literature Society 1999-2003
HEFCE Subject Specialist Assessor for French 1995-96

Current and Recent Research Projects

A monograph on Partonopeus de Blois, with a particular focus on the Continuation (current)
Principal Investigator for the Partonopeus de Blois Electronic edition project (2001-2005), funded by a grant of £238,387

Publications since 2001

‘Turnus’, forthcoming in Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Medieval Romance, ed. by Neil Cartlidge (to be published by Boydell and Brewer)
‘Les toponymes espagnols dans Partonopeus de Blois’, Romania, 126 (2008), 497-506
‘L’image du Conquérant et de ses opposants chez Benoît de Sainte-Maure’ in Guillaume le Conquérant face aux défis: Actes du colloque de Dives-sur-Mer des 17 et 18 septembre 2005, études réunies par Huguette Legros, Medievalia 66 (Orléans : Paradigme, 2008), pp. 17-30.
‘Gautier d’Arras, Ille et Galeron’ in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages IV. The Arthur of the French: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 398-400
Penny Eley and Philip Shaw, ‘A tarantula in your bed? A lexical problem in Partonopeus de Blois’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen CVII.3 (2006), 307-21
‘Albi and the Ardennes in Partonopeus de Blois’, French Studies Bulletin, 101 (Winter 2006), 92-96
‘Speech and writing in the Roman de Rou and Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle’, in Maistre Wace: A Celebration. Proceedings of the International Colloquium held in Jersey, 10-12 September 2004, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Judith Weiss (St Helier: Société Jersiaise, 2006), pp. 121-37
Penny Eley, Penny Simons, Mario Longtin, Catherine Hanley and Philip Shaw, ‘Partonopeus de Blois’: An Electronic Edition (Sheffield: HriOnline, 2005) at http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/partonopeus/
Penny Eley, Catherine Hanley, Mario Longtin and Penny Simons, ‘Cristal et Clarie and a lost manuscript of Partonopeus de Blois’, Romania, 121 (2003), 329-47
‘Sex and writing: Hue de Rotelande’s Ipomedon and Alan of Lille’s De planctu naturae’, in Courtly Literature and Clerical Culture. Selected Papers from the Tenth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, Universität Tübingen, Deutschland 28 Juli - 3 August 2001, ed. Christoph Huber & Henrike Lähnemann (Tübingen: Attempto-Verlag, 2002), pp. 93-103
Narcisus et Dané, edited and translated by Penny Eley, Liverpool Online Series, Critical Editions of French Texts 6 (University of Liverpool, 2002)
Piramus et Tisbé, edited & translated by Penny Eley, Liverpool Online Series, Critical Editions of French Texts 5 (University of Liverpool, 2001)

Full list of publications

Postgraduate Supervision

Thesis topics I am currently supervising or co-supervising include:

'Language and ethnicity in the works of Geimar, Wace and Jordan Fantosme'
'Comic (re)writing: a study of Hue de Rotelande’s Ipomedon'
'Gaps in meaning between spoken and subtitled dialogue in modern French cinema'

Teaching interests

I teach a range of undergraduate language courses, plus specialist modules on the history of the French language, medieval narrative, and French Canada in the 1960s and early 1970s. I also contribute to postgraduate courses on medieval French language and literature and advanced French-English translation. I am interested in the use of IT in teaching and in Inquiry-based Learning (IBL), and am currently involved in a number of teaching development initiatives and a scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) project.

In 2005 I received a Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, in recognition of my work on curriculum development and computer-based learning support.

I currently teach the following specialist modules and units:

FRE205/206 : History of the Language
FRE239/240 : Actualités françaises (contemporary French language unit)
FRE251/252 : Medieval Short Stories
FRE321/322 : Literature and Society of French Canada
FRE6641 : Medieval French Language
FRE6642 : Text and Intertext in Medieval French

Departmental Responsibilities

As I was on AHRC-funded study leave in Semester 1 of 2010-11, I currently have a reduced administrative load.

Departmental Learning and Teaching Advocate
Departmental and School Web Manager