Profile

Biography

Helen Fulton came to York in 2010 as Professor of Medieval Literature, attached to the Centre for Medieval Studies at King’s Manor.

A graduate of Linacre College, Oxford, and the University of Sydney, her career began with a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, where she was attached to the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. This was followed by posts at the University of Sydney, where she was Pro-Dean in the Faculty of Arts, and at Swansea University, where she served as Head of the School of Arts. She was previously Professor of English and Director of the Research Institute for Arts and Humanities at Swansea University. Her main research areas are medieval literatures, Celtic studies, Arthurian literature, and critical theory.

She has extensive experience of leading research projects in the UK and Australia, acting as Principal Investigator on 13 funded projects (British Academy, AHRC, Australian Research Council). She has held Visiting Research Fellowships at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London. She has over 50 publications, including 6 books, and has convened 3 major international conferences as well as organising numerous sessions at international conferences. She has given 6 keynote addresses and many invited papers in the UK, US and Australia.

She is currently a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, the editor of a refereed journal (Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion), and a member of several editorial boards including the University of Wales Press. She has been the founding Director of three research centres and played a major role in research strategy in her previous post as Director of the Research Institute for Arts and Humanities at Swansea University. She recently collaborated as Co-Investigator on an AHRC-funded research project using digitization and GIS mapping (www.medievalchester.ac.uk) and is currently leading two teams in the development of further projects, 'Middle English in Medieval Wales' and 'Britain, Ireland and the Italian Renaissance: Reception and Influences'.

Research

Overview

Professor Fulton’s main research interests lie in medieval Celtic languages and literatures, particularly Middle Welsh and Old Irish. She has edited a collection of medieval Welsh poetry (Selections from the Dafydd ap Gwilym Apocrypha) and has published a monograph and a wide range of articles on aspects of medieval Welsh literature and its connections with other European literatures, particularly French, English and Latin. She is also well-known as an Arthurian scholar and recently edited the Blackwell Companion to Arthurian Literature. Her literary criticism is informed by semiotic and Marxist theory and she has a longstanding interest in political literature of the Middle Ages, including prophecy.

A related interest is critical theory, particularly narrative theory and discourse analysis, and she was the co-author of a recent study, Narrative and Media. She has also published work on contemporary Welsh and Irish writing in English.

Current projects

Current projects include a monograph, The Medieval Town Imagined: Representations of Urban Culture in the Middle Ages, and an edited collection, Urban Culture in Medieval Wales. She recently received British Academy funding to work on an edition of the Welsh prose text, Ystorya Dared, a version of the Troy story from the early fourteenth century.

Supervision

Previous PhD topics supervised by Professor Fulton include a study of women in thirteenth-century Wales, an edition of Old Irish texts, a study of Hiberno-English elements in the fiction of James Joyce and Flann O’Brien, and a feminist reading of the Middle English Melusine. She is currently supervising a thesis on medieval prophecy and nationalism.

Professor Fulton would welcome applications from students wishing to work on medieval Celtic literatures, Arthurian literature, comparative medieval literatures, political literature, and topics combining medieval texts with contemporary linguistic and/or theoretical approaches.

Publications

Selected publications

Books

• H. Fulton (2009), (ed.). A Companion to Arthurian Literature. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 571pp.
• H. Fulton (2008). Welsh Prophecy and English Politics in the Late Middle Ages. Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. 41pp.
• R. Evans, H. Fulton, D. Matthews (2006), (eds). Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 286pp.
• H. Fulton (2005), (ed.). Medieval Celtic Literature and Society. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 304pp.
• H. Fulton, with J. Murphet, R. Huisman and A. Dunn (2005). Narrative and Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 329pp.
• H. Fulton (1996). Selections from the Dafydd ap Gwilym Apocrypha. '‘Welsh Classics' Series. Llandysul: Gomer Press. 267pp.
• H. Fulton (1989). Dafydd ap Gwilym and the European Context. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 274pp.

Articles and chapters

• 'History and Myth: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae', in H. Fulton (ed.), Companion to Arthurian Literature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 44-57'Arthur and Merlin in Early Welsh Literature: Fantasy and Magic Naturalism', in H. Fulton (ed.), Companion to Arthurian Literature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 84-101
• 'Class and Nation: Defining the English in Late-Medieval Welsh Poetry', in R. Kennedy and S. Meecham-Jones (eds), Authority and Subjugation in Writing of Medieval Wales (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 191-212
• 'Reading Media Images: The Visual Grammar of Kress and Van Leeuwen', in P. Bounds and M. Jagmohan (eds), Rethinking Media Studies: Essays on Neglected Media Critics (Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2008), 283-312
• 'Autobiography and the Discourse of Urban Subjectivity: The Paston Letters', in R. Bedford, L. Davis and P. Kelly (eds), Early Modern Autobiography: Theories, Genres, Practices (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 191-216
• 'Cheapside in the Age of Chaucer', in R. Evans, H. Fulton and D. Matthews (eds), Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), 138-51
• 'The Mabinogi and the Education of Princes in Medieval Wales', in H. Fulton (ed.), Medieval Celtic Literature and Society (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 230-247
• 'Pilgrims and Soldiers: Constructing the Town in Medieval Histories', in G. Barnes (ed.), Travel and Travellers from Bede to Dampier (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005), 45-66
• 'Owain Glyn Dŵr and the Uses of Prophecy', Studia Celtica 39 (2005), 105-21
• 'Arthurian Prophecy and the Deposition of Richard II', in K. Busby and R. Dalyrmple (eds), Arthurian Literature 22 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005), 64-83
• 'Hegemonic Discourses in Brian Friel’s Freedom of the City' in M. Tymoczko and C. Ireland (eds), Language and Tradition in Ireland (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 62-83
• 'Mercantile Ideology in Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale', Chaucer Review 36 (2002), 311-28

External activities

Memberships

She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and regularly acts as assessor for publishers, journals and funding bodies.

She is an active member of various professional associations, including the Medieval Academy of America, the New Chaucer Society and the Celtic Studies Association of North America, and was formerly the President of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association.

She has held Visiting Fellowships at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the Institute of English Studies at the University of London.

Editorial duties

Professor Fulton is the editor of the Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Celtic Studies, Literature Compass, and the University of Wales Press.