Staff profile

My research interests cover medieval French and Italian literature, particularly the area of cultural adaptations of literary texts.

My first book examines vernacular translations of the story of Merlin in French and Italian medieval literature, following the transmission of Merlin texts from Britain, to France, to Italy over a period of 300 years. Incorporating perspectives from modern semiotic theory and language philosophy, this study seeks to understand medieval ideas about translation through the figure of Merlin, an omniscient prophet who consistently "translates" his vision of the narrative into obscure prophecies.

Most recently, I have started work on a new project that focuses on the relationship between humans and the natural environment in medieval vernacular adaptations of Genesis. Adopting an ecocritical perspective, which intersects particularly with philosophies of ecofeminism and ecomaterialism, this project analyses stories of ecological creation and destruction that manifest medieval perceptions of the interface between the human, the natural, the technological, and the divine.

• Translation/Linguistics/Pedagogy

• Beyond Allegory: Medieval and Early Modern Ecologies Conference

Authored book

• Chuhan Campbell, Laura, Pohl, Benjamin & Tether, Leah (2021). The Bristol Merlin: Revealing the Secrets of a Medieval Fragment. ARC Humanities Press.
• (2017). The Medieval Merlin Tradition in France and Italy: Prophecy, Paradox, and Translatio. D. S. Brewer.

Chapter in book

• Chuhan Campbell, L. (Published). Medieval and Early Modern Italian Romance. In The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance. Krueger, Roberta L. Cambridge University Press.
• Chuhan Campbell, Laura (2023). ‘Mervoillous fu li engineres que croix fist de fust, non de pierre’ Materiality and Vernacular Theology in the Wood of the Cross Legend. In The Surrounding Forest: Trees in the Medieval Imaginary. Bintley, Michael D. J. & Salonius, Pippa Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
• Chuhan Campbell, Laura & Tether, Leah (2021). Printers' Prefaces and Rewriting in Arthurian Romance. In Rewriting Medieval French Literature: Studies in Honour of Jane H. M. Taylor. Busby, Keith & Tether, Leah De Gruyter. 235-260.
• Armstrong, Dorsey & McKee, Arielle (2021). Teaching the Italian Arthurian Tradition. In Approaches to Teaching the Arthurian Tradition. MLA.
• Morato, Nicola & Schoenaers, Dirk (2017). French Literary Identity in Translation: The Roman de la Rose and its Tuscan Adaptations. In Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France: Studies in the Moving Word. Brepols. 507-530.
• McFadyen, Johnny & Tether, Leah (2017). 'Chretien de Troyes' Erec et Enide: Women in Arthurian Romance'. In Handbook of Arthurian Romance: King Arthur's Court in Medieval European Literature. DeGrutyer. 451-466.

Edited Journal

• (Forthcoming). Human Interactions with the Medieval and Early Modern Natural World. Neophilologus, Springer.

Journal Article

• Tether, Leah & Chuhan Campbell, Laura (2020). Early Book Collections and Modern Audiences: Harnessing the Identity/ies of Book Collections as Collective Resources. RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 20(1): 26-39.
• Chuhan Campbell, Laura (2020). Franco-Italian Cultural Translation in the Prophecies de Merlin and the Storia di Merlino. Francigena 6: 113-138.
• (2013). 'The Devil’s in the Detail: Translating Merlin’s Father from the Merlin en Prose in Paulino Pieri’s Storia di Merlino'. Arthuriana 23(2): 35-51.
• (2009). Reinterpretation and Resignification: A Study of the English Translation of Le Roman de la Rose. Neophilologus 93(2): 325-338.

Translated Chapter in Book

• Bowen, Alan & Wildberg, Christian (trans.) (2009). Pierre Pellegrin, 'The Argument for the Sphericity of the Universe in Aristotle's De Caelo '. In New Perspectives on Aristotle's De Caelo. (ed.). Leiden: Brill.