- Smith, J.L. and Howes, H. (2019). Medieval Water Studies: Past, Present and Promise. Open Library of Humanities, 5(1). doi:10.16995/olh.443.
- Howes, H. (2018). THE MERE WIFE. TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, (6038), pp. 26–27.
- Howes, H. (2018). GILGAMESH RETOLD. TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, (6038), pp. 26–27.
- Howes, H. (2018). ALADDIN. TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, (6038), pp. 26–27.
- Howes, H.E. (2014). Fulling Linen, Haunting Clear Waters, and Crying Bitter Tears: Two Middle English Versions of Aelred of Rievaulx’s De institutione inclusarum. Florilegium, 31, pp. 139–164. doi:10.3138/flor.31.06.
- Howes, (2011). 'Sowrede’ Eyes and Obscured Meaning: ‘Wynnere and Wastoure’ as Spiritual Challenge. Marginalia, 16.
Contact details
Address
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom
Personal links
About
Overview
Dr Hetta Howes is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at City, University of London and Deputy Programme Director for the BA in English. As a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker she is committed to communicating her research to a wide audience, regularly contributing to broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4 as well as publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, BBC History Extra, and The Conversation.
Hetta's research focuses on women's writing in medieval literature, and especially the role of water in devotional writing written by and for women. She has published on a range of topics, including tropes of crying and cleansing in Aelred of Rievaulx's spiritual writings, the relationship between fluids and emotions in medieval lyrics, and the role of the senses in fourteenth-century alliterative verse. Her first book, 'Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature' was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2021 and has been described as a "triumph" that will "change your opinion on and imagination of a great many medieval themes." It considers a large span of watery images in a small cluster of late-medieval devotional writings by and for women, in order to explore the association between women and water in the medieval religious imagination.
Her most recent book, 'Poet, Mystic, Widow. Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women' (2024), was published by Bloomsbury Continuum and University of California Press. We tend to make a lot of assumptions about the medieval world, and women’s place within it - that women always got married, that they never worked, that they were always subservient to their husbands, for example. But this book aims to show that there were women in the Middle Ages who were leaders and innovators, who changed the world around them, even as they faced challenges surprisingly similar to those that women still have to navigate today. It has been described as "engaging, authoritative and original" and "a welcome addition to medieval history."
Hetta is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and teaches on a number of different modules on the BA and MA programmes in MCCI at City. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from Queen Mary University of London. She welcomes applications for PhD supervision from prospective applicants interested in late-medieval devotional literature, particularly writing by and for women; the history of the emotions; fluidity and transformation; modern preoccupations with the medieval world.
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Queen Mary, University of London, Jul 2017
- PhD, Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom, Sep 2012 – Jun 2016
- MPHil, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Sep 2011 – Jun 2012
- BA, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, Sep 2008 – Jun 2011
Administrative role
- Deputy Programme Director for BA English, City, University of London, Sep 2024 – present
Employment
- Senior Lecturer in English Literature, City, University of London, Sep 2017 – present
- Lecturer in medieval and early modern literature, Queen Mary, University of London, Sep 2016 – Aug 2017
- Teaching Associate, Royal Holloway University of London, Jan – May 2016
- Teaching Associate, Queen Mary, University of London, Sep 2013 – Jun 2016
Awards
- City University of London, Widening Participation Team (2019) Outstanding Staff Contribution
- City, University of London, School of Arts and Social Sciences Academic Impact Award (2019)
Nominated, shortlisted
Research
Research Interests
- Women's literary culture in the Middle Ages
- Environment as metaphor in late-medieval literature
- Modern preoccupations with the medieval
- History of the Emotions
- The medical humanities, especially sex difference in the Middle Ages
Forthcoming Publications
- 'Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature', due for publication with Boydell and Brewer in 2021
- ‘‘Make me a good woman’: reflections on becoming in a fifteenth-century prayer sequence’ (article in progress)
- ‘A hunt for the Nun of Watton in Late-Medieval Translations of 'De Institutione Inclusarum’ (article in progress)
Current Research
- Fluid imagery in medieval devotional writings by and for women
- New approaches to medieval water studies
- Medievalisms in Maria Davhana Headley's 'The Mere Wife'
- Solitude in medieval religious literature
Publications
Publications by category
Books (2)
- Howes, H. (2024). Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women. Bloomsbury Continuum. ISBN 978-1-399-40873-8.
- Howes, (2021). Transformative Waters in Medieval Devotional Literature. Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer.
Chapters (3)
- Howes, H. (2021). Blood and Water. Transformative Waters in Medieval Devotional Literature (pp. 175–217). Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84384-612-3.
- Howes, H. Knocked Up. In Howes, H. (Ed.), Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women London, UK: Bloomsbury Continuum. ISBN 1-399-40873-9.
- Howes, Adreynt in shennesse’: Blood, Shame and Contrition in ‘Quis est iste qui uenit de Edom?’ In Boffey, J. and Whitehead, C. (Eds.), The Middle English Lyric: New Approaches to Short Poems Boydell and Brewer.
Internet publication
- Howes, H. Mary Magdalene: Why Do People Want to Believe She’s a Sinner and a Prostitute?
Journal articles (6)
Other (4)
- Howes, H. (2021). The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages.
- Howes, H. Pathos in Late-Medieval Drama and Art: A Communicative Strategy, Gabriela Mazzon (Leiden: Brill, 2018), Emotions: History, Culture, Society (review).
- Howes, H. Water in Medieval Intellectual Culture: Case Studies from Twelfth-Century Monasticism (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017) James L. Smith, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 2019 (review).
- Howes, H. Emotions and War: Medieval to Romantic Literature, ed. Downes et al (London: Palgrave, 2015), Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2017 (review).
Professional activities
Events/conferences (11)
- Courtauld Gender and Sexuality Research Seminar, Violent Fluids: Feminist Histories of Blood. (Public lecture) (2020). Invited speaker.
Paper: And there came forth blood and water’: Fluid Reflections on Medieval Devotion, - Waterworks: Creative Approaches to Medieval Water Studies. (Workshop) (2019). Chair, Session/Day Chair and Organising Committee.
- International Medieval Congress. (2019). Invited speaker.
Paper: Making a Good Woman Out of a Manuscript - London Biennial Chaucer Conference: Chaucer and Europe. (Conference) (2019). Chair and Organising Committee.
- International Anchoritic Conference. Norwich (2019). Invited speaker.
Paper: Reading Beyond the Material: Reflections on ‘Becoming’ in a Fifteenth-Century Prayer Sequence - Northern Lights: Late Medieval Devotion to Saints from the North of England. (Conference) Lausanne (2019). Invited speaker.
Paper: Fluid Afterlives: A Hunt for the Nun of Watton in Late-Medieval Translations of 'De Institutione Inclusarum' - Press for Progress, Feminism and Medieval Studies Roundtable. (Public lecture) King's College, University of London (2018). Invited speaker.
- Women's Voices, Medieval and Early Modern. Queen Mary University of London (2017). Organising Committee.
- Research into the Medieval and Early Modern: Navigating Issues of Engagement. (Workshop) (2017). Organising Committee.
- Medieval Emotions, London Medieval Society. (Conference) (2017). Session/Day Chair and Organising Committee.
- Tears and Smiles Medieval to Early Modern. (Conference) Senate House, University of London (2015). Organising Committee.
Keynote lecture/speech
- Women, Water, Work. Troublesome Elements Conference, University of Leicester (2018).
Media appearance
- Places of Solitude. I was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust funded Pathologies of Solitude project at Queen Mary University of London to present an eight-episode podcast series on solitude. Much of this series was recorded during the 2020 lockdown, and includes an interview with the Archbishop. You can listen here: https://solitudes.qmul.ac.uk/podcasts/
Online articles (23)
- Waste Not: Medieval Literature's Disdain for Environmental Vandalism. (2024). The Times Literary Supplement
- Tails from the Deep. (2023). BBC History Extra
- Another 'Morgen-Colla' Monday. (2022). Times Literary Supplement
- Maere mearcstapan: A tour of early medieval monsters. (2022). Times Literary Supplement
- Five books to transport you to the Italian Riviera this summer. (2022). The Conversation
- When Classic Stories Get Reinvented, Can They Ever Be Successful? (2022). The Conversation
- Now and How We Got Here: Masculinity and Misogyny in Beowulf. (2021). Times Literary Supplement
- Medieval Mary. (2019). Times Literary Supplement
- Smale foweles: Celebrating avian relationships in the Middle Ages. (2019). Times Literary Supplement
- Medieval Mystics with a Hotline to God. (2018). BBC History Extra
- Piers Plowman in the twenty-first century. (2017). The Times Literary Supplement
- Review of 'A Medieval Woman's Companion', by Susan Signe Morrison. (2017). The Times Literary Supplement
- Beasts of Wonder: Reading Animals in the Middle Ages. (2016). BBC History Extra
- Heavenly Dew: Crying in the Middle Ages. (2015). BBC History Extra
- A Brief History of Medieval Magic. (2015). BBC History Extra
- Swamps and Bogs in Eighties Film and Literature. (2014). The Artifice
- Watery Offerings: Women and Water in the Middle Ages. (2014). The History of the Emotions Blog (QMUL)
- Mary Magdalene: Why Do People Want to Believe She’s a Sinner and a Prostitute? BBC History Extra
- Sociable Solitude in the Medieval Anchorhold. Solitudes Past and Present
- Medieval Drama and the Mystery Plays. British Library: Discovering Literature
- Arthurian Legends. British Library: Discovering Literature
- A Bloody Shame. History of Emotions Blog
- Lines of Blood and Baffled Eyes: Retelling Great Stories from a Female Perspective. Times Literary Supplement
Radio programmes (33)
- Here Be Mermaids. BBC Radio 3 Mermaids continue to seduce us. Disney’s The Little Mermaid is about to get a live action reboot, Beyoncé dressed up as Oshun in her music video about her husband’s infidelity, and Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch won Costa Book of the Year.
New Generation Thinker Dr Hetta Howes asks what it is about these creatures that continues to beguile and inspire us and what they mean in the 21st century.
The word mermaid was used in the Renaissance as slang for prostitute, the transgender charity for young people is called Mermaids, and the phrase Hic Sunt Marinae, Here Be Mermaids, has historically been used to chart unknown waters on maps. Why are mermaids an ideal tool for describing things that our society does not understand, or even fears?
Hetta heads to the rough waters of north Cornwall and discovers the impact one mermaid had on the town of Padstow. Shot by a local fisherman, she cursed the town with the Doom Bar, a strip of sand that has wrecked hundreds of ships and continues to prove hazardous to sailors today. Wading out to the Doom Bar, Hetta hears how the Padstow Mermaid was both vulnerable, subject to the whims and desires of a spurned man, and powerful as she has the ability to change the landscape with her revenge.
Author Monique Roffey explores the inspiration power of mermaids who came to her in her dreams in Tobago, and Sacha Coward takes her on a mermaid hunt to discover startling beauty in the Royal Museums Greenwich. - The Murder Capital of England. BBC Radio 3 BBC New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes takes her life into her own hands and pays a visit to the murder capital of medieval England. Its location might just surprise you.
According to a new project from the University of Cambridge, the 'Medieval Murder Maps', the most violent city of the era wasn’t London, or the medieval capital of York, it was the intellectual university town of Oxford. And the key culprits were its students, who were notorious for fighting and killing those who lived and worked in the city, as well as each other. The digital project draws on original research by Professor Carl Hammer.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/medieval-murder-maps
So, what made these students so violent? Hetta seeks to discover why Oxford was such a deadly destination in the Middle Ages, and to uncover what traces of its murderous past linger today. Oxford is no longer a dangerous place to visit, but its students, much like at universities across the country, face similar challenges to their medieval counterparts – where to live, how to pay rent, how to make friends and deal with a difficult workload. What support is available for students thrown in at the deep end, enjoying a new level of freedom away from the watchful eyes of their parents and trying to find their tribe amongst their new peers? - Julian of Norwich, Woman's Hour. BBC Radio 4 Words to live by and finding hope in the face of terrible suffering, the life of the anchoress or hermit Julian of Norwich, the power of walking and nature to heal and art that replaces adverts with words of love – all part of this special Bank Holiday Woman’s Hour.
650 years ago a woman we only know as Julian of Norwich produced a book written while she was voluntarily walled up in a hermit’s cell which challenged the ideas of the time about sin and suffering. It presented a radical vision of love and hope that “All Shall Be Well and All Shall Be Well and All Manner of Thing Shall be Well”. We hear about her life, how it has helped one woman through cancer treatment and inspired the lives of others, and we hear from listeners about the words that they turn to for motivation and encouragement.
Nuala McGovern speaks to Claire Gilbert author of a new novel I Julian; Dr. Hetta Howes senior lecturer in medieval and early modern literature at City, University of London; Sally-Anne Lomas Trustee of The Friends of Julian and creative director of The Cloth of Kindness project and to Faye Smith founder of Hope Walking. And, the British Kenyan artist Grace Ndiritu explains why she emblazoned the words 'Wherever you are I hope you have found peace' on 30 billboards around Birmingham. - Melusine, Free Thinking. BBC Radio 3 The legend of Mélusine emerges in French literature of the late 14th and early 15th centuries in the texts of Jean d’Arras and Coudrette. A beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union between a king and a fairy, is condemned to spend every Saturday with her body below the waist transformed into the tail of a serpent. She agrees to marry only on the condition that her husband should never seek to see her on that day every week. Shahidha Bari explores the emergence of the hybrid mermaid-woman, her historical significance and the legacy of the medieval myth of Mélusine.
Olivia Colquitt is an AHRC funded doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool whose research focuses upon the socio-cultural significance of the late Middle English translations of the French prose romance Mélusine and its verse counterpart, Le Roman de Parthenay.
Hetta Howes is Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City, University of London and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She is the author of Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature.
Lydia Zeldenrust is an Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature, where she currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. She is the author of The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe.
The Royal Opera House is staging a version of Rusalka opening February 21st 2023. This folk-tale is a Slavic version of the water sprite figure seen in the Melusine story. - Julian and Margery, Free Thinking. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001lkj3
- Wife of Bath, Free Thinking. BBC Radio 3 Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in setting out the stories of women - "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" Shahidha Bari explores both the roots and the influence of Chaucer's creation and the different modern versions created by writers such as Zadie Smith and Ted Hughes and a film version by Pasolini. Shahidha's guests are Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Patience Agbabi who reimagines this timeless character as a Nigerian businesswoman in her poem The Wife of Bafa, and New Generation Thinker Dr Hetta Howes who teaches at City University, London.
You can hear Marion Turner discussing Chaucer's own life in a past episode of Free Thinking hearing from nominees for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j2qw
You can find a discussion about Chaucer's court case in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode with Hetta Howes called A Feminist Take on Medieval History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06n28wv
And Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes exploring Women in the World all available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp - Chasing the Dream. BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Dr Hetta Howes investigates why artists from Chaucer to Taylor Swift have found creative inspiration in restless nights and interrupted dreams.
Taylor Swift's latest album Midnights promises 'a journey through terrors and sweet dreams', and she's by no means the first artist to find creative fuel in nocturnal visions. In the Middle Ages, ‘dream poetry’ like Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, became a distinctive, and wildly popular, genre of writing. Dream poems are framed by a restless narrator falling asleep and learning of a story that somehow relates to problems they're trying to process in waking life. On waking the narrator writes down the dream and this becomes the poem.
Using the structure of a Medieval 'dream poem', this programme will take listeners on a journey through the twilight realm between sleeping and waking, exploring the relationship between sleeplessness and creativity. Hetta hears from Dr Lotte Reinbold, an expert on dream poetry at Selwyn College, Cambridge. She also speaks to Professor Mark Blagrove about why restless sleep can prompt us to remember our dreams more vividly, and to the award-winning poet David Harsent who keeps a pad and pen by the bed to record dream fragments on waking. - God's Body, Free Thinking. BBC Radio 3 Modern theology often treats God as an abstract principle: a mover that doesn't move. But in the Bible, Abraham walks alongside him, Jacob (arguably) spends a night wrestling with him, Moses talks with him face to face, Ezekiel sees him sitting on a throne, and Amos sees him standing in his temple. Jesus is declared the son of God, and declares in turn that he has sat alongside God at his right hand. Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou joins Matthew Sweet to discuss the embodied divine and what it means for our understanding of God, along with with Hetta Howes, who studies Medieval mystical Christianity, and psychotherapist and former priest Mark Vernon.
- Stewart Lee: Unreliable Narrator. BBC Radio 4 Comedian and writer Stewart Lee draws on a lifetime of professional untruths to consider the disorienting and apparently all-encompassing world of the unreliable narrator.
Why, if we appreciate truth, objectivity and authenticity so much, do we also love the distortions of almost all narrative art?
Does the basic human desire to tell stories mean that none of us are ever really telling the truth?
What happens when the idea of manipulating the narrative leaves the world of entertainment and enters the world of politics?
From the British Library to the middle of a Victorian graveyard, in novels and poems, documentaries, the songs of Bob Dylan and stand-up comedy, Stewart picks through the archives and encounters a host of more or less reliable voices including Mediaevalist Dr Hetta Howes, writer and critic Jennifer Hodgson, political commentator Nesrine Malik, poet Rob Auton, filmmaker Ben Rivers, Dylanologist Nish Kumar, comedian Russell Kane and one or two devious special guests.
Be on your guard, expect the unexpected and suspend your disbelief as we head out in search for something to rely on. - A Short History of Solitude: Retreat. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m57l
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, A Feminist Take on Medieval History. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j35f
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, Science Fiction. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086zq4g
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, Women in Virtual Reality. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p085mn2k
- Equal as We Are. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f6t9
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, BBC/AHRC Research in Film Awards. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07v5nkx
- Free Thinking: The Legacy of the Trojan War. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bg2k
- Free Thinking: Myth Making, Satire, and Caryl Churchill. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07qqn2p
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, Places of Poetry and the Colonial Countryside. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07q19kk
- Free Thinking: The Emotion of Now. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040wd
- Woman's Hour - Fleabag and women in comedy. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040wd
- Proms Plus Talk: Swans. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07k3qtg
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, Pregnancy Puzzles. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h3219
- Arts & Ideas: New Thinking, Neolithic Revelations. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07jwntx
- Sunday Feature: A Unicorn Quest. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066np
- Late Night Woman's Hour - Crying. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072mwsd
- When Greeks Flew Kites: Deadlock. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002bb6
- Sunday Feature: Passion Meditation. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06pqsqr
- The Essay: Welling Up, Women and Water in the Middle Ages. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09v5ncr
- Woman's Hour - Female Role Models. BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hp2dt
- Ecstasy, Carpe Diem: Free Thinking. BBC Radio 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlw
- Free Thinking Festival: New Generation Thinkers. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08jb1mm
- Free Thinking: Medieval Influences on Harry Potter. BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099wz08
- Water. Footnotes, King's College London Radio https://www.mixcloud.com/footnotes/episode-6-water/