The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies is delighted to announce that the King’s Gollancz Lecture for 2024-25 will be delivered by the Ven Dr Rachel Mann. 

Dr Mann is Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford within the Diocese of Manchester, a Visiting Teaching Fellow in the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met University, and a member of the Church of England’s theological advisory board, the Faith and Order Commission. She has authored nine books that range across fiction, non-fiction and poetry, in particular exploring the themes of trauma, gender, sexuality and spirituality, and is a regular broadcaster.

Her Gollancz Lecture is entitled “Desperately Seeking Eleanor…’ A Search for a Medieval Trans Woman in Modern Poetry”. Eleanor Rykener, a fourteenth-century seamstress, embroider and sex worker, barely exists in historical record, yet some scholars have claimed her as an example of a trans person living in plain sight in medieval England. In this lecture, Dr Mann will use her T.S.Eliot Prize shortlisted poetry collection, ‘Eleanor Among The Saints’ as a prism through which to look for the traces of Eleanor in the past, present and future.

A drinks reception will follow afterwards in the History Space on the 8th Floor of the King’s Building.

The annual King's Gollancz Lecture celebrates the life and work of former King's Professor of English Sir Israel Gollancz, medievalist, Shakespearean and founding member of both the British Academy and the English Association. The lecture is organised by the Centre for Early Modern Studies (CEMS), the London Shakespeare Centre (LSC), and the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (CLAMS) in rotation. This year it is the turn of CLAMS.