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August 24, 2006

English professor studies at Cambridge

ULM’s Rebecca Stephenson, assistant professor of English, was one of 15 people chosen from universities across the nation to attend a seminar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, July 3 – Aug. 11.

Paul Szarmach, a noted specialist in Anglo-Saxon hagiography, led the seminar, “Holy Men and Holy Women in Anglo-Saxon England,” which was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The group met several times a week to discuss assigned reading in Anglo-Saxon saints’ lives.  During her free time, Stephenson researched her independent project, which was a homily on the “Assumption of the Virgin Mary,” written by Aelfric of Eynsham, a late tenth-century Benedictine monk.

“One of the great treats of being in Cambridge was the abundance of medieval manuscript collections,” Stephenson said. “I spent a lot of time working with one-thousand-year-old manuscripts.”

Stephenson encourages her colleagues to attend a National Endowment for Humanities seminars. “These seminars cover a wide variety of topics and are located throughout the United States and the world,” she said. “I want people at ULM to know that going to one of these seminars is a very realistic possibility and a great opportunity.”

While in England, Stephenson also presented at two conferences: “International Medieval Congress” in Leeds and “Conceptualizing Multilingualim in England, 800-1250” in York. Officials at the conference in York selected Stephenson’s paper to appear in its proceedings.

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