Dr Alfred Hiatt, BA (Sydney), PhD (Cambridge)
Reader in Medieval English Literature

Alfred Hiatt works on medieval literature and culture, with a particular interest in spatial representation. He is the author of Terra Incognita: Mapping the Antipodes before 1600 (British Library and University of Chicago Press, 2008), a history of the representation and cultural significance of the antipodes in European thought from Plato to the discovery of the New World. His doctoral work and first book - The Making of Medieval Forgeries (British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2004) - was on the reception and use of forged documents. He has written articles on historical writing, genre in Middle English literature, the reception of medieval forgeries within the 'Republic of Letters' of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the role of maps in understanding (and misunderstanding) Beowulf.

Research interests:

Current research interests and projects include a book on the medieval reworking of classical geography (Dislocations: Reading Medieval Maps); a collaborative project (with Prof. Jerry Brotton and Dr Yossef Rapoport (History)) on comparative approaches to European and Islamic cartography, 1100-1600; and the reception of Lucan’s Bellum civile in the Middle Ages.

Postgraduate supervision:

Alfred would welcome enquiries from potential doctoral students interested in any of the areas of his research.

Publications:

Selected Publications:

‘Beowulf off the Map’, Anglo-Saxon England, 38 (2010), 11-40, doi:10.1017/S026367510999010X

‘Diplomatic Arts: Hickes against Mabillon in the Republic of Letters’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 70 (2009), 351-373, doi:10.1353/jhi.0.0045

Terra Incognita: Mapping the Antipodes before 1600 (London and Chicago: British Library/University of Chicago Press, 2008)

‘The Map of Macrobius before 1100’, Imago Mundi, 59 (2007), 149-176

The Making of Medieval Forgeries: False Documents in Fifteenth-Century England (London and Toronto: British Library/University of Toronto Press, 2004)

See also Alfred Hiatt's Queen Mary Research Publications profile

Undergraduate teaching:

In the current academic year, Alfred contributes to undergraduate teaching on:

• ESH110: Literatures in Time
• ESH250: Chaucer
• ESH253: Introduction to Old English
• ESH377: Narratives of Magic and Witchcraft

Postgraduate teaching:

In the current academic year, Alfred contributes to postgraduate teaching on:

• ESH7304: The Spatial Turn: History, Literature, and Geography