Staff profile

My research interests lie in medieval French, Occitan and Franco-Italian culture. My current project focuses on the visual and verbal constructions of knowledge in vernacular encyclopaedias. I am thinking in terms of the 'complex singularities' (the cosmos, nature, knowledge, the body, the community) which structure ideas and create connections between diverse beings: angels, humans, animals, plants and stones. I ask how these ontological and epistemological systems are reconfigured as encyclopaedias were reshaped in different manuscript versions.

My work on the chansons de geste about rebel barons, as well as their chronicle and prose rewritings led to a book on resistance against royal power in medieval culture. I examine these works through lenses of medieval political theory and thought about vengeance, anthropological work on feud and rebellion, and histories of sovereignty. I have spoken on the Song of Roland on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

I have previously published on cyclical narratives, with a focus on the relationship between ethics and the figure of the hero in the Guillaume d'Orange cycle, the Lancelot and Tristan prose romances, and the Roman de Renart. My research interests include the materiality of medieval historiography and romance, medieval practices and concepts of translation, cosmopolitanism, textual geographies and hybrid languages, including the French of Italy.

Before coming to Durham, I was a graduate student at King's College London, and research fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 2014-15, I was a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, and in autumn 2015, I was a visiting scholar in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University.

Postgraduate Supervision

I would be keen to hear from students interested in pursuing research in any area of medieval French and Occitan literature. 

• Medieval Encyclopaedias
• The Visual Construction of Knowledge
• Medieval French Literature
• Medieval Occitan Literature
• Medieval Libraries
• Franco-Italian Literature
• Medieval Translation

Authored book

• Sunderland, Luke (2017). Rebel Barons: Resisting Royal Power in Medieval Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Sunderland, Luke. (2010). Old French Narrative Cycles: Heroism Between Ethics and Morality. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

Chapter in book

• Sunderland, Luke (2022). Cosmopolitanism. In Transnational Modern Languages. 69-76.
• Sunderland, Luke (2022). Touch and Movement in Chretien de Troyes's Chevalier de la Charrette. In New Medieval Literatures. Scase, Wendy, Ashe, Laura, Knox, Philip & Robertson, Kellie Boydell & Brewer. 22.
• Sunderland, Luke (2016). Venice. In Europe: A Literary History 1348-1415. Wallace, David Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2: 486-501.
• Sunderland, Luke (2013). La Vengeance royale dans le Couronnement de Louis. In Lectures du Couronnement de Louis. Hüe, Denis Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 39-49.
• Sunderland, Luke (2012). Multilingualism and Empire in L’Entrée d’Espagne. In Locating the Middle Ages: The Places and Spaces of Medieval Culture. Weiss, Julian & Salih, Sarah King's College London. XXIII: 55-66.
• Sunderland, Luke (2012). Bueve d'Hantone/Bovo d'Antona: Exile, Translation and the History of the Chanson de geste. In Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory. Campbell, Emma & Mills, Robert D.S. Brewer. 226-242.
• Sunderland, Luke (2012). Chanson de geste. In The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition. Greene, Roland Cushman, Stephen Cavanagh, Clare Ramazani, Jahan Rouzer, Paul, Feinsod, Harris, Marno, David & Slessarev, Alexandra Princeton University Press. 220-222.
• Sunderland, Luke (2008). The (Future) Perfect Knight: Repetition in the Cycle de Guillaume d’Orange. In Rhythms: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture. Lindley, Elizabeth & McMahon, Laura Oxford: Peter Lang. 87-99.

Journal Article

• Sunderland, Luke (2022). The Restless Orders of Nature: Multispecies Classification in Jean Corbechon's Livre des propriétés des choses. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 52(2): 253-284.
• Sunderland, Luke (2020). Visualizing Elemental Ontology in the Livre des propriétés des choses. Romanic Review 111(1): 106-127.
• Sunderland, Luke (2019). A Cosmopolitan Middle Ages? Exemplaria 31(1): 63-72.
• Sunderland, Luke (2018). Medieval Cultures and Modern Crises: Agamben’s Troubadours, Angels and Monks. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 23(5): 77-93.
• Sunderland, Luke (2018). Emotions, History and Presence in Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie. Forum for Modern Language Studies 54(4): 443-464.
• Sunderland, Luke (2016). Introduction: Medieval Libraries, History of the Book and Literature. French Studies 70(2): 159-170.
• Sunderland, Luke (2012). Genre, Ideology and Utopia in Huon de Bordeaux. Medium Aevum 81(2): 289-302.
• Sunderland, Luke (2011). Marcabru in Motion: “Dire vos vuoill ses duptanssa” in Chansonniers A and C, and in Matfre Ermengaud's Breviari d’amor. Glossator 4: 115-130.
• Sunderland, Luke (2011). Linguistic and Political Ferment in the Franco-Italian Epic: The Geste Francor as Minor Literature. Exemplaria 23(3): 293-313.
• Sunderland, Luke. (2010). The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva. Comparative Literature 62(1): 22-40.
• Sunderland, Luke. (2008). Entre résistance et révolte: les enjeux du territoire. Revue des langues romanes 112(2): 465-490.
• Sunderland, Luke. (2008). Le Cycle de Renart: From the Enfances to the Jugement in a Cyclical Roman de Renart Manuscript. French Studies 62(1): 1-12.