TOEBI Newsletter Volume 33 (2016) ISSN: 1694-3532 Teachers of Old English in Britain Special Report from TOEBI’s and Ireland Postgraduate Rep: TOEBI aims to promote and support the Those of you at the TOEBI conference in teaching of Old English in British and Irish Dublin in October may remember some of Universities, and to raise the profile of the the ideas that the Medieval Postgraduate Old English language, Old English literature Students at the University of Nottingham and Anglo-Saxon England in the public eye. School of English were concocting to incr- ease the impact for medieval English. We Membership wanted to create reading groups, organise an inter-disciplinary conference, start an e- TOEBI welcomes new members. If you have journal and host a series of talks on any questions regarding membership, medieval themes that would fire-up the please contact the Secretary, Dr Marilina undergraduate imagination. Where are we a Cesario, [email protected] year on? Meeting The easiest, and perhaps the most successful plan, was to set up a reading The next TOEBI meeting will be held at group. There has been an Old Norse reading King’s College London on Saturday October group for postgraduates for some years and 22nd 2016. The proposed theme is ‘Old this was very successful, so we shamelessly English Performance, Pedagogy and the borrowed the idea from the wonderful Profession.’ Please contact the meeting Judith Jesch and set up an Old English one organiser, Prof Clare Lees, for further which the equally wonderful Paul Cavill information: [email protected] generously offered to host. Flushed with success we started an undergraduate read- Conference Awards ing group for Old English that Paul and I host. This has been very successful too. Not TOEBI awards bursaries to help all the undergraduates come – there are postgraduate students attend conferences. some die-hards and some casual visitors. Applications are welcome from post- But even those who don’t come know it’s graduates and those who have recently there and they know it’s fun. It creates a completed doctorates but do not yet have sense that there is more to Old English at an academic post. The application form can Nottingham than just passing exams; it is be downloaded from the following website: something people enjoy and do for fun and http://www.toebi.org.uk/grants-for- it allows undergraduates, postgrads and graduates/ and should be submitted to Dr teachers to mix in a friendly and relaxed Alice Jorgensen <[email protected]>. environment. On the back of that we took a more daring step and launched an Old English Con- Be part of it: versation Group for the postgrads as an extension of the Reading Group. We had To join TOEBI, visit our first meeting two days ago. Everyone http://www.toebi.org.uk/ was a little nervous. We had some ‘Con- 1 TOEBI Newsletter Volume 33 (2016) ISSN: 1694-3532 versational Old English’ sheets to get the encouraged by the panel to try elsewhere. ball rolling; even then the ball kept getting Writing that proposal was a great learning stuck until we hit on the idea of making ‘yo experience in itself, but it took a surprising mamma’ jokes in Old English. After that, amount of time. Even if the outcome was there was a great deal of laughter and not the one we wanted, we have learned merriment and a great deal of spoken Old about writing grant proposals with help English. Not all of it was grammatically from lecturers in the department, most accurate, but it got us thinking about gram- notably Nicola Royan whose capacity for mar and vocabulary and word order in a patience and rigour is legendary. really fun way. Next time we are going to try Old English dating and chat-up lines... So there we are. A year on and some things have taken root and others have not or are Another new venture, again raided from the still lying dormant. At first it felt as if we had Vikings who have a fabulous Vikings for failed. Our enthusiastic meetings of a year Schools programme, was Anglo-Saxon for ago and all our ideas have seemed to crash Schools. We sent students into local primary into barriers of money or our own limited schools in October and November to teach time. However, on reflection I think we have children about the Anglo-Saxons. These achieved quite a bit. We have a list of willing programmes are really wonderful ways of speakers who are eager to come and give giving back to the community whilst at the those talks to our undergraduates without a same time allowing students to use their fee, only needing expenses, and that will studies in a real and valuable way. For the happen. The already warm atmosphere of moment ASfS is on hold because we need to medieval studies is enhanced by our regular find some funding and see how it can be meetings and reading groups. And even if organised at Department level, but we have these were the simplest and cheapest to high hopes of seeing it take off again in organise, they are in many ways the most September. important. A year into my PhD I was lucky enough to be awarded a Teaching Fel- Funding has tended to be the sticking point lowship which allowed me to study full for many of our ideas. We invited our fellow time, but I remember only too well how PhDs in History and Archaeology to a lonely working part-time is. How, despite all meeting about organising a postgraduate the care, attention and opportunities off- conference and we attempted to contact ered, you still feel a little left out. These fellow OE PhDs in neighbouring Universities regular meetings allow us to see our part- in Birmingham and Leicester, but in the end time colleagues much more often. We get it was most practicably organised by the to talk to each other about our research and M3C students, none of whom were in our love of Old English and it has made us a English departments. However, on a more real team. So, if at first it felt as if we had positive note we did get to make some new failed, I think, in retrospect that we have friends and that is priceless. Our idea of actually achieved something truly valuable hosting talks aimed at und-ergraduates will and we will go on to do more. take place next year, again, if we can get the funding. I have high hopes that we will. The Eleni Ponirakis first grant proposal was well received, but TOEBI Postgraduate Rep the project itself did not meet all the criteria School of English, University of Nottingham for that funding body. However we were 2 TOEBI Newsletter Volume 33 (2016) ISSN: 1694-3532 TOEBI Annual Meeting 2015 fast), on Values in/of Beowulf, featured Trinity College Dublin, 10 October – papers from Helen Conrad O’Briain (Trinity ‘Values’ College Dublin), on ‘Family Values: Wealh- theow and the Danish succession’, Harriet Soper (Cambridge), on ‘Qualities of Old Age The 2015 TOEBI Annual Meeting was in Beowulf’, and Philip Shaw (Leicester), on organized and hosted by Alice Jorgensen at ‘Relative Values: Beowulf in the Germanic Trinity College Dublin. The meeting, which Diaspora’. was being held in the Republic of Ireland for the first time, was well attended, with thirty Both afternoon sessions stimulated wide- delegates registered. The theme of ‘Values’ ranging discussion, after which what had had drawn a varied range of contributions been an excellent day ended with the and the programme stimulated much lively Annual General Meeting (the Minutes of discussion on the day. which can be read on the TOEBI website). The first session, chaired by Clare Lees (King’s College London), was on Valuing Hugh Magennis, Queen’s University Belfast Teaching, with papers from Eleni Ponirakis (Nottingham), ‘Encouraging Undergraduates to Learn Old English’, Gerard Hynes (Trinity College Dublin), ‘The Value of Digital When you’ve finished reading Technology for Teaching and Learning Old this Newsletter, please spread English’, and Rebecca Stephenson (Univ- the word by passing it on to ersity College Dublin), ‘Pedagogy and colleagues or students Byrhtferth’s Diagrams’, leading to a general discussion in which participants compared aspects of pedagogic practice. After this morning session the meeting broke for an enjoyable buffet lunch, during which the Reviews TOEBI committee met. Hugh Magennis, Translating Beowulf: There were two afternoon sessions, both Modern Versions in English Verse. focusing on research issues. The first was on Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011. Pp. ix, 244. the topic of The Values of Signs, chaired by ISBN: 9781843842613. Paperback £19.99. Christina Lees (Nottingham). Tom Birkett (University College Cork) spoke on ‘Rēdæ sē This is a beautifully written, impressively þe cynne: The Value of Runes in late Anglo- comprehensive, and ultimately humbling Saxon England’, Patricia O’Connor (Univ- book for someone who thought that she ersity College Cork) on ‘Bees and the Old knew a thing or two about the translation of English Bede: Evaluating the Margins of Beowulf. If you ever think about or talk to CCCC 41’, and Rachel Burns (University your students about translations of Beowulf, College London) on ‘The Value of Parchment this book is one that you must read, and and Old English Verse mise-en-page’. several chapters of it would be useful for students who are either translating Beowulf The second afternoon session, chaired by for themselves or reading it solely in Hugh Magennis (Queen’s University Bel- translation.