Dr Emily A. Winkler
College Lecturer in History
Dr Emily A. Winkler is College Lecturer in Medieval History (St Edmund Hall and Hertford College), and Associate Member of the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. She recently completed a research fellowship as Principal Investigator of an Arts and Humanities Research Council project, entitled ‘The Search for Parity: Rulers, Relationships and the Remote Past, c. 1100–1300’ (2019–2022).
Dr Winkler works on historical writing and the literary, political, and intellectual culture of the high Middle Ages, with interests in the British Isles, the Anglo-Norman world, and the North Sea zone. She also works on the social and material culture of the Norman Mediterranean world, especially Sicily and southern Italy. In her research, she seeks to apply cross-disciplinary and comparative approaches to the past for a better understanding of medieval people and ideas. Several core questions are at the heart of her work. How did historians writing in the Middle Ages think about the past? How do art, architecture and archaeological remains tell stories about the thoughts and values of the people who created and interacted with them? What insights does the study of writing and rewriting history in the Middle Ages offer into diplomacy and conquest, both in practice and in perception? How can phenomenology—the study and philosophy of lived experience—and recent research on emotions in history help us to retrieve medieval ideas about human thought and feeling?
In 2018 Dr Winkler won a two-year Early Career Research Grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to lead the project ‘The Search for Parity: Rulers, Relationships and the Remote Past in Britain’s Chronicles, c. 1100–1300’ (2019–2022). Dr Nia Wyn Jones (Bangor University), the project’s Co-Investigator, is a specialist on medieval historical writing in Middle Welsh and Latin. The project investigates how and why diplomatic relations between rulers mattered to writers of history in high medieval England and Wales. This project explores the aims and insights of these chronicles, and considers their implications for a revised picture of high medieval diplomacy and historical writing in Britain. You can read more about the project here. Dr Winkler and Dr Jones are currently completing the manuscript of their co-authored monograph, Historical Thinking in Medieval England and Wales: The Case of the Roman Past.
At Teddy Hall, Emily is an advocate of writing, and she has served as a judge for St Edmund Hall’s Ex Aula prize for the best article submitted to Ex Aula, the online journal written and edited by St Edmund Hall postgraduate students.
Previously, Dr Winkler held an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship at the University of Mainz in Germany (2017–2019) and the John Cowdrey Junior Research Fellowship in History at St Edmund Hall, Oxford (2015–2018).
She also works as the Acquisitions Editor in History at Medieval Institute Publications (University of Western Michigan / De Gruyter), and is Vice President for Europe of the Haskins Society.
Monograph
- E.A. Winkler, Royal Responsibility in Anglo-Norman Historical Writing, Oxford Historical Monographs, Oxford University Press (Oxford, 2017).
Edited Books
- Rewriting History in the Central Middle Ages, 900–1300, ed. E.A. Winkler and C.P. Lewis, International Medieval Research, Brepols (Turnhout, 2022).
- The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. E.A. Winkler & L. Fitzgerald, Brepols (Turnhout, 2021).
- Designing Norman Sicily: Visual Stories of a Mediterranean Kingdom, ed. E.A. Winkler, L. Fitzgerald & A. Small (Woodbridge, 2020).
- Discovering William of Malmesbury, ed. R.M. Thomson, E. Dolmans and E.A. Winkler (Woodbridge, 2017).
Peer-reviewed Articles and Chapters
E.A. Winkler & N.W. Jones, ‘The Very Idea of a Border in Britain’, in Borders in the Norman World: New Frontiers in Scholarship, ed. D. Armstrong, Á. Kecskés, C.C. Rozier and L.V. Hicks (Woodbridge, 2023). [forthcoming]
E.A. Winkler, ‘Grief, Grieving, and Loss in High Medieval Historical Thought’, Traditio 77 (2022). [in press]
E.A. Winkler, ‘Æthelflaed and other rulers in English histories, c. 900–1150’, The English Historical Review 137 (2022). [Open Access]
E.A. Winkler & C. P. Lewis, ‘Curating the Past in the Central Middle Ages’, in Rewriting History in the Central Middle Ages, 900–1300, ed. E.A. Winkler & C.P. Lewis, International Medieval Research, Brepols (Turnhout, 2022), 15–35.
E.A. Winkler & A. Small, ‘Normans and Conquest in the Mediterranean’, in The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. E.A. Winkler & L. Fitzgerald (Turnhout, 2021), 11–40.
E.A. Winkler, ‘William of Newburgh, Henry II and the Kings of France’, in France et Angleterre: manuscrits médiévaux entre 700 et 1200, ed. F. Siri and C. Denoël, Bibliologia Series, Brepols (Turnhout, 2020), 233–53.
E.A. Winkler & L. Fitzgerald, ‘The Story of Designing Norman Sicily’, in Designing Norman Sicily: Visual Stories of a Mediterranean Kingdom, ed. E.A. Winkler, L. Fitzgerald & A. Small (Woodbridge, 2020), 1–21.
E.A. Winkler, ‘King Alfred and the Danish Wars in Anglo-Norman Histories’, in Textualität von Macht und Herrschaft: Literarische Verfahren im Horizont transkultureller Forschungen, ed. M. Albert, U. Becker, E. Brüggen and K. Kellermann (Bonn, 2020), 201–25.
E.A. Winkler, ‘Imagining the medieval face of battle: the “Malfosse” incident and the Battle of Hastings, 1066–1200’, Historical Research 93 (2020), 1–21.
E.A. Winkler, ‘Translation, Interpretation and the Danish Conquest of England, 1016’, Translation in Times of Disruption, ed. G. Iglesias Rogers and D. Hook, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, Palgrave MacMillan (Basingstoke, 2017), 173–200.
E.A. Winkler, ‘The Latin Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, British kingdoms and the Scandinavian past’, Welsh History Review 28.2 (2017), 425–56.
E.A. Winkler, ‘William of Malmesbury and the Britons’, Discovering William of Malmesbury, ed. R.M. Thomson, E. Dolmans and E.A. Winkler, Boydell & Brewer (Woodbridge, 2017), 189–201.
E.A. Winkler & E. Dolmans, ‘Discovering William of Malmesbury: The Man and his Works’, Discovering William of Malmesbury, ed. R.M. Thomson, E. Dolmans and E.A. Winkler, Boydell & Brewer (Woodbridge, 2017), 1–11.
E.A. Winkler, ‘The Norman Conquest of the Classical Past: William of Poitiers, Language and History’, The Journal of Medieval History 42 (2016), 456–78.
E.A. Winkler, ‘1074 in the Twelfth Century’, Anglo-Norman Studies 36 (2014), 241–58.
E.A. Winkler, ‘England’s Defending Kings in Twelfth-Century Historical Writing’, Haskins Society Journal 25 (2013), 147–63.
Other Publications
E.A. Winkler, ‘The unfinished story of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Times Literary Supplement (Online edn, 24 Jan. 2018).
E.A. Winkler, ‘A Journey through the Medieval Past: One Historian’s Quest and Questions’, The Aularian 23 (2016).
E.A. Winkler, ‘“Upon the rock of Harlech”: an aspect on the sea and the past’, Bringing the Outside In: Enriching Student Learning in the Humanities through Environmental Engagement (Warwick: The Higher Education Academy, History and English Subject Centres, 2010), 42–3.
E.A. Winkler, ‘Sicily: Island of Myth’, Corriere della Valle: Magazine of the Pacific Alliance 7:2 (2009), 14–15.
Dr Winkler delivered a ‘Teddy Talk’ at St Edmund Hall’s Research Expo 2017, entitled ‘Was there history in the Middle Ages?’, available as a University podcast and YouTube video.
In this podcast, Dr Winkler and Dr Jones go back to the primary sources, exploring what is surprising about how medieval writing, pictures, and buildings depicted and responded to warfare in medieval Britain. This is part of a AHRC funded project on Medieval History: Conquest Histories and Remembrance. This podcast is also available as a YouTube video.
In this podcast, Dr Winkler and Dr Jones go back to the chronicles, looking at the activities of messengers in their own words, and the stories of historians who were themselves experienced negotiators. This is part of a AHRC funded project on Medieval History: Conquest Histories and Remembrance. This podcast is also available as a YouTube video.
Where next?
Dr Emily A. Winkler
AB (Dartmouth, USA); MSt, DPhil (Oxford)
- College Lecturer in History
- Associate Member, Faculty of History