My research focuses on the German literature of the Middle Ages in its cultural context, and on its modern perceptions. My approach combines close textual analysis with recent theoretical ideas, in particular on bodies, gender and history.

My most recent project has analysed the way in which the Middle Ages are represented in German cinema, bringing together medievalist, Germanist and filmic approaches for the first time to analyse German cinema's relation to its distant past. My co-edited collection Medieval Film was published in 2009; my monograph Filming the Middle Ages in 2011. I spent the academic year 2009/10 at the Freie Universitaet Berlin on an Alexander von Humboldt grant and completed my monograph there.

Another research interest of mine are the limits of the human - both of individual human beings and of what counts as human. My monograph Medieval Blood, loosely based on my PhD thesis, is concerned with blood as a crucial part of conceptualizations of the body, gender and subjectivity. I am particularly interested in the connections between medical, religious and literary ideas about blood, and in the anxieties expressed through the medieval obsession with blood, and continue to publish in this area.

In addition, I have studied how humans are distinguished from other beings, especially monsters. My co-edited collection The Monstrous Middle Ages is part of this work.

For my work in these three areas, I was recently awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for 'outstanding young scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study'.

I welcome applications from prospective PhD students in related fields.