Mary Rambaran-Olm | |
|---|---|
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Calgary (BA) University of St Andrews (MLitt) University of Glasgow (PhD) |
| Thesis | John's Prayer: an edition, literary analysis and commentary (2012) |
| Doctoral advisor | G. D. Caie [1] |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline |
|
| Institutions | University of Toronto |
| Website | www |
Mary Rambaran-Olm is a literary scholar specializing in early medieval England from the fifth to eleventh centuries.
Rambaran-Olm was born and raised in Canada, and is of Afro-Indo-Caribbean descent. [2] [3] In an interview with The Washington Post she credits her father as inspiring her interest in early medieval England. [2] When she was in college she became fascinated with Old English upon reading Beowulf . [4] In 2012, Rambaran-Olm was awarded a PhD from the Department of English at the University of Glasgow for a thesis, entitled 'John's Prayer: An edition, literary analysis and commentary', examining a poem in the Exeter Book. [5] She previously studied for a BA in English and History at the University of Calgary and for an MLitt in Medieval Literature at the University of St Andrews. [6]
Rambaran-Olm was the Provost's Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of English and Drama from 2020 to 2022. [7] Her research explores race in early medieval England, drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Stuart Hall and Dipesh Chakrabarty. [6] Her translation of The Descent Into Hell (or John the Baptist's Prayer) was praised as "accurate and readable", as well as bringing new insight into the idea of time in the poem. [8]
Along with Breanne M. Leake and Micah Goodrich, Rambaran-Olm has served as a guest editor for the journal Postmedieval's volume Race, Revulsion, and Revolution. [9] The issue was widely read and broke a number of statistical records for the journal for readership and downloads. [10] As of April 2021, she is also writing a book on race in Early England for Cambridge University Press along with Erik Wade. [11] Along with her academic publications, she has written a number of public-facing works, for History Workshop , Time, HistoriansSpeak and a forthcoming piece in Public Books. [12] [13]
In 2019, she was a speaker at the Race Before Race symposium held at the Folger Shakespeare Library, whose stated aim was to be critical of and imagine pathways for a more inclusive future for medieval and renaissance studies. [14] At this event, she publicly resigned from her position as 2nd Vice President of the (as it was named at the time) International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. [15] Rambaran-Olm's resignation came as a result of the organization's reluctance to change its name and other issues she had with the organization, as well as issues within the wider field of early English studies. The proposal to change the name of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists had first been proposed by Adam Miyashiro in an open letter published on Facebook on July 28 2017. [16] Her resignation served as a catalyst for the field to begin interrogating its terminology that was criticised as antiquated and what was said to be the historical connection between the term 'Anglo-Saxon' and white supremacist ideologies. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] As a result of her actions she experienced cyber bullying, racial abuse and threats of bodily attacks. [24] Several academic associations wrote statements of support to Rambaran-Olm, including: Queerdievalists; Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship; Medievalists of Color; the Islands of the North Atlantic Conference. [25] [24] [26] [27] Rambaran-Olm has also been involved in feminist activism in academia, and spent several years trying to draw attention to Andy Orchard's behaviour before Al Jazeera broke the story about his alleged sexual harassment of students. [28]
In 2022, the Los Angeles Review of Books declined to publish a negative review by Rambaran-Olm of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, which she criticised as a white-centric narrative. [3] The Los Angeles Review of Books later published a positive review of the book, which Boris Dralyuk, the Review's editor in chief, stated had been commissioned before the review by Rambaran-Olm. [3]
Rambaran-Olm later posted her review on Medium and also posted parts of her email correspondence with the editors on Twitter. [3] [29] [30] Sarah Bond, who commissioned the review, accused her of giving a selective version of the facts and pushed back against the idea that the refusal of the review had anything to do with whiteness or protecting the book authors. Others became involved in the controversy, and two scholars falsely claimed Rambaran-Olm lied about her race and was not part Black. Bond later apologised, condemned the racist attacks against Rambaran-Olm, and deleted her Twitter account. [3]
Æthelthryth was an East Anglian princess, a Fenland and Northumbrian queen and Abbess of Ely. She is an Anglo-Saxon saint, and is also known as Etheldreda or Audrey, especially in religious contexts. She was a daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, and her siblings were Wendreda and Seaxburh of Ely, both of whom eventually retired from secular life and founded abbeys.
Dougla people are Caribbean people who are of mixed African and Indian descent. The word Dougla is used throughout the Dutch and English-speaking Caribbean.
Elizabeth Elstob, the "Saxon Nymph", was a pioneering scholar of Anglo-Saxon. She was the first person to publish a grammar of Old English written in modern English.
Rachel Bromwich born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, from 1945 to 1976. Among her most important contributions to the study of Welsh literature is Trioedd Ynys Prydein, her edition of the Welsh Triads.
Dorothy Whitelock, was an English historian. From 1957 to 1969, she was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge. Her best-known work is English Historical Documents, vol. I: c. 500-1042, which she edited. It is a compilation of translated sources, with introductions.
Barbara Yorke FRHistS FSA is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England, specialising in many subtopics, including 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism. She is currently emeritus professor of early Medieval history at the University of Winchester, and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She is an honorary professor of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.
Ursula Miriam Dronke was an English medievalist and former Vigfússon Reader in Old Norse at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College. She also taught at the University of Munich and in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University.
Mary Dockray-Miller is an American scholar of early medieval England, best known for her work on gender in the pre-Conquest period. She has published on female saints, on Beowulf, and on religious women. She teaches at Lesley University, where she is professor of English.
Exeter Book Riddle 27 is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. The riddle is almost universally solved as 'mead'.
Sarah Emily Bond is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on late Roman history, epigraphy, law, topography, GIS, and digital humanities.
Ruth Josephine Dean (1902–2003) was an American scholar of Anglo-Norman literature. Throughout her career, she worked hard to establish the legitimacy of Anglo-Norman literature as a subject of study, and her definitive work, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (1999) has won widespread praise for its substantial contribution to the study of literature.
Rosalind Claire Love is a British historian, medievalist, and academic. She has been a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge since 1993, and Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge since 2019.
Eleanor Catherine Parker is a British historian and medievalist.
Rachel Fulton Brown is an American medievalist. She is an Associate Professor of Medieval History, Fundamentals, and the College at the University of Chicago.
Mary Teresa Elizabeth Remnant, was an English musician, scholar, musicologist and medievalist. She was a leading figure in the Early music revival in the United Kingdom.
Carol Braun Pasternack was a professor of medieval English literature and language at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from 1988 to 2013. She chaired the Medieval Studies department, and was also Dean of Summer Sessions at UCSB in 2011–2013.
Lisa M. C. Weston is a scholar of medieval literature and Old English language. She teaches at Fresno State Department of English, and served as interim chair of the department in 2019.
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe is an American medievalist specializing in Old English. Her work focuses on orality and literacy, manuscript cultures, and questions of embodiment and agency in Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. She is Professor Emerita of English at UC Berkeley.
Alaric Hall is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal Leeds Studies in English and its successor Leeds Medieval Studies.
Seeta Chaganti is a medievalist and professor of English at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on Old and Middle English poetry and contemporary material culture.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |