“Anchored in Malvern: Eremitic and Anchoritic Practice in Malvern Hills and Piers Plowman"

Seth Strickland is a sixth-year in LE; he works primarily on 12th-14th century manuscript production, book culture, history of science, and allegorical theory. When he is not throwing himself against the rocky shores of his dissertation or the job market, he occupies himself with cooking, photography, and keeping his cat Buster out of both of those hobbies.

The Literatures in English Department Roundtable (LEDR) is a forum for graduate students in the Department of Literatures in English to share ideas across a wide variety of fields, time periods, and methodologies. Open to students at all stages of the program, the LEDR gives graduate students an opportunity to present work in an informal setting to a group of peers, to get feedback about a current project, and to learn about the work being done by colleagues. Projects might include excerpts of dissertation chapters, article drafts, conference papers, FWS writing assignment sequences, or course syllabi. At a time in which the tremendous diversity of literary study has made it increasingly difficult to grasp the discipline as a whole on one’s own, the purpose of the LEDR is to foster a greater sense of intellectual community and cohesion within Cornell’s Department of Literatures in English, and to strengthen graduate work through increased collaboration. The LEDR meets 5 times a semester in the department lounge. In order to facilitate discussion by members of the audience (including a large number of graduate students as well as faculty), papers being presented at the LEDR are made available one week prior to each meeting; meetings themselves will focus primarily on discussion between the audience and the presenter.