Staff List
Director
Professor Sarah Alyn Stacey, BA, PhD (Hull), Membre de l'Académie de Savoie, FTCD (2004), Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite.
For further details, please see the Centre's Contact Information Page.
Current Visiting Research Fellows
Dr Piers Benn
Dr Alexandra Corey
Dr Susan Foran
Mr James Harpur (Visiting Writer)
Dr Gavin Hughes
Dr Biörn Tjällén
Directors of Research Networks
Over the years, the Centre has organised its research activities through a series of research networks directed by eminent colleagues in the field. Details of the current and past research networks may be found on the page 'Research Networks'. The current networks are listed below.
Dr Barbara Crostini, Byzantine Studies Research Network
Dr Gavin Hughes, Irish Conflict Archaeology Research Network
Dr Gerald Morgan, Chaucer in Context Research Network
Dr Biörn Tjällén, The Arts and Politics of Virtue in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
PROFILES [section under construction]
Dr Piers Benn
Dr Alexandra Corey
Dr Barbara Crostini, B.A. (Oxon.), D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Dr Barbara Crostini Lappin has been collaborating with the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies now for a number of years. She secured funding from the European Science Foundation for a workshop on the theme: '"Convivencia" in Byzantium? Cultural Exchanges in a Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Lingual Society', which took place inTrinity College 1-3 October 2010. She has acted as supervisor for one of the Centre's Ph.D. candidates (Dr Savvas Neocleous) looking at the interaction of Greeks and Latins around the time of the Crusades. Drawing on her expertise in the study of Greek manuscripts gained at the Vatican Library and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dr Crostini Lappin has taught courses andgiven seminars on the skills required in reading and interpreting these ancient Greek documents to graduate students at the Queen's University of Belfast and at TCD. In particular, the Chester Beatty Library hosted a teaching seminar which she conducted in 2004, and now she is involved in the first in-depth project of cataloguing the considerable collection of Greek Manuscripts at TCD, benefiting from the Long Room Hub funding initiative. The aim of this project is to make available scholarly descriptions of TCD manuscripts on-line with links to digital images from the manuscripts themselves.
Dr Susan Foran, B.A., PhD (Trinity College Dublin)
Mr James Harpur, B.A. (Cantab.)
James went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Classics and graduated with a degree in English Literature. At Cambridge he developed a fascination with the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius and later published a translation of the poems from that book (Fortune’s Prisoner, Anvil Press, 2007). James is primarily a poet, but with a scholarly interest in medieval and early modern history, particularly religious history. His latest non-fiction book, Dazzling Darkness: The Lives and the Afterlives of the Christian Mystics (Hurst, 2025), is a survey of Christian mystics, from St Paul to Thomas Merton. He has also published a history of pilgrimage in the West (The Pilgrim Journey (SPCK, 2016).
James is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of the arts, and has won many prizes for his work, including the Michael Hartnett Prize, the Vincent Buckley Award, the J.G. Farrell Prize, and the UK National Poetry Competition. His poem, ‘St Ita’s Lullaby’, based on the vision of St Ita of Killeedy, was set to music by the composer Nicola LeFanu and performed at the 2024 Westminster Abbey Carol Service on 23 December: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aelL5TPmuQ&t=2669s.
James is the Centre's first 'Visiting Writer. As part of his work for the CMRS, James is engaged in translating a selection of the love poems of Pierre de Ronsard. He also participated in the conference to mark the 500th anniversary of Ronsard’s birth (1524), giving a paper on Ronsard’s ‘Elegy XXIV’, often referred to by the first line, beginning: ‘Escoute, Bucheron …’ James compared Ronsard’s heartfelt elegy about the desecration of his beloved local forest of Gastine (felled for commercial purposes) to similar tree-lamenting poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Mew.
James was also one for the speakers at the CMRS conference to celebrate the re-opening of Notre-Dame de Paris in November 2024. His paper, ‘The Mystic Ark: Notre-Dame, Sacred Space and the Poetic Imagination’ explored the nature of holy places and the condition of the sacred, arguing that the poetic imagination (akin to what William Blake referred to as ‘Double Vision’) was a requisite for an appreciation of sacredness. (James also gave this paper at the AFIS conference at the university of Caen, in May 2025.)
Following the Notre-Dame conference, James’s latest poetry book, The Gospel of Gargoyle (featuring a dialogue between an animate gargoyle and a poet residing at the Irish College in Paris, and set on the roof of Notre-Dame) was launched at the United Arts Club, Dublin, with support from Trinity College and the French Embassy. Excerpts from the book were performed by members of Dublin’s Stage and Screen Society. The Gospel of Gargoyle is a signed, limited edition with artworks by Paul Ó Colmáin, and published by Eblana Press: https://eblanapress.com
Dr Gavin Hughes, B.A. (Wales), Ph.D (Wales)
Dr Gerald Morgan, FTCD (1993), M.A. (Oxon.), D.Phil (Oxon.)
Dr Morgan is one of the foremost Chaucer scholars of his generation. A Meyricke Exhibitioner at Jesus College, Oxford, he holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Until his retirement, he was a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin and for many years has been the Research Director of the 'Chaucer in Context Research Group' of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He also serves on the Centre's Editorial Board. Dr Morgan is also founder and Director of the Chaucer Hub. The author of some 40 articles and 10 books, his works include Geoffrey Chaucer: The Franklin's Tale, The London Medieval and Renaissance Series (London, 1980; reprinted Dublin, l992); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Idea of Righteousness (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, l99l); The Tragic Argument of Troilus and Criseyde, 2 vols (Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005); The Shaping of English Poetry: Essays on 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010) was the first in a series of four volumes which explore major developments in early-modern English poetry: The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 2: Essays on 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland and Chaucer (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013) and The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 3: Essays on 'Beowulf', Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013) were launched in Trinity's Long Room Hub on 10 May 2013 by Professor Jane Roberts (University of London); his fourth volume in this series, The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 4: Essays on 'The Battle of Maldon', Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Chaucer, was published in 2017 (Oxford: Peter Lang) and was launched in the Senior Common Room in Trinity College Dublin. His book, Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), is a significant collection of articles by some of the most eminent Chaucer scholars of this period. It was launched in Trinity’s Long Room Hub on 11 May 2012. Dr Morgan's volume of essays, 'Truthe is the beste': A Festschrift in Honour of A.V.C. Schmidt, co-edited with Nicolas Jacobs, was published in 2014 (Oxford: Peter Lang).
Dr Biörn Tjällén, B.A., PhD (Stockholm)