This month, Prof Simon MacLean is stepping down as Director of the St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies after a productive year in charge. We had a fantastic annual lecture by Prof R. I. Moore, some great workshops, and our interdisciplinary MLitt programme continued to go from strength to strength.
We can now announce the new co-directors for SAIMS: Dr Bettina Bildhauer (Modern Languages) and Dr James Palmer (History).
The duo were founding members of SAIMS back in 2008 and are committed to moving forward genuine collaboration between different disciplines, in St Andrews and beyond.
Bettina is a specialist in medieval German literature who has always sought to approach ideas of culture from many different angles. Her own interdisciplinarity has seen her work in film studies, medievalism and various aspects of medical and religious history, leading to her books Medieval Blood (2006) and Filming the Middle Ages (2011).
James, meanwhile, is a historian of religion and culture in the early medieval West. His work has explored the intersections of politics, theology and literature, with particular focus on the crossing of cultural frontiers. His publications include the books Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World (2009) and the imminent The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (2014). He is also reviews of editor of The Mediaeval Journal, based in SAIMS.
It promises to be another exciting year for SAIMS and Bettina and James are greatly looking forward to developing St Andrews as a focal point for medieval studies and research.