2014-15
Professor Michelle Brown
The Trinity Long Room Hub was delighted to welcome Professor Michelle Brown from University of London as a Visiting Research Fellow.
Professor Brown’s research has concentrated on early Insular manuscripts, examining their script, decoration and cultural significance. Her doctoral research on the book of Cerne (published in 1996), has been followed by a major study of the Lindisfarne Gospels (The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe, 2003).
In addition to works on specific manuscripts she has taken a broader approach to the Early Middle Ages, attempting to locate manuscripts and the idea of the book within historical and cultural contexts. Publications in this area include In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 (2006) and The Book and the Transformation of Britain c. 550-1050: A Study in Written and Visual Literacy and Orality (2011).
Most recently her work has been exploring contact between Britain and Ireland and the Near East in the Early Middle Ages, challenging assumptions about local and regional styles. During her time at the Trinity Long Room Hub, Professor Brown worked on manuscripts in the Trinity College collection, and in other Dublin collections, to develop her ideas about contact between Irish and Eastern churches.
In particular she examined the colophon of the Book of Armagh and its parallels in Armenian sources as evidence for ideas about book-making and cultural contact.
Professor Brown gave a lecture titled 'From Sinai to the Skelligs: Evidence for Cultural Contact Between the Insular and Near Eastern Churches, including New Material from St Catherine's Monastery' on Monday, 9th of February 2015 at 6pm in the Trinity Long Room Hub.
Censorship and the Enlightenment
