Research Expertise and Interest

medieval French literature, Rare Books and Manuscripts, critical theory

Research Description

Henry Ravenhall is an assistant professor in the Department of French with specializations in medieval French literature and manuscript culture. 

Some of his research interests include medieval Occitan language, narrative and lyric; senses; theories of temporality; philology and text-editing; compilatio; philosophies of Jacques Rancière and Jean-Luc Nancy; and the digital humanities. Currently, he is working on two book projects: The Anachronic Manuscript: Voices, Networks, and History in a Medieval French Book, which aims to develop a new approach to medieval literature and history-writing based on the manuscript as a material object, and Touch and the Experience of Medieval French Manuscripts, which attempts to document the prevalence of haptic bookish practices in the French-speaking space between 1200 and 1500. 

Ravenhall studied at King’s College London, where he earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. and finished his doctoral dissertation "The Anachronic Manuscript: Voices of the Past in BnF fr. 17177,” which is the inspiration behind one of his upcoming book projects. Before his current appointment at UC Berkeley, he served as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, working on a project titled “Tactile Communities: Emotion and the Experience of Medieval French Literature.”