Discussion Group: Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100-1250

In this talk, Ayoush Lazikani spoke about her book published this summer, Cry of the Turtledove: Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100-1250 (Palgrave's New Middle Ages Series). She discussed the motivations and approaches that informed this comparative project, and shared some of her findings on the texts. After an overview of the rationale behind this project (including discussion of cross-cultural contact during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), Ayoush zoomed into the Arabic and English texts she has focused on. There was particular attention paid to the poetry of Sufi Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari and the anonymous prose meditation known as the Wooing of Our Lord.

For more information about the book, and to purchase a copy, click here.

Ayoush Lazikani is a Departmental Lecturer in Old and Middle English at the University of Oxford (Jesus & Oriel Colleges). She specializes in devotional writing of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, working especially in the history of emotions. Her research has focused on English, Arabic, Anglo-Norman, Latin, and Persian medieval texts. She has published widely in these areas, including the books Cry of the Turtledove: Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100-1250 (Palgrave's New Middle Ages Series, 2021) and Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (University of Wales Press' Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages Series, 2015).