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Dr Laura Varnam

@drlauravarnam.bsky.social

2.7K followers 1.2K following 1.2K posts

Tutor in English Lit at Univ, Oxford. Medievalist. Poet. She/her. Co-founder @guildmedmak. Church as Sacred Space (2018). Encountering Margery Kempe (2021). Primers Volume Seven: Grendel’s Mother Bites Back (2024). Next books on Du Maurier, and Beowulf.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 6h

🤭🤭🤭

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 7h

OMG 😳😂

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Reposted by Dr Laura Varnam

The Guild of Medievalist Makers @guildmedmak.bsky.social · 5d

Those who teach and research Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be interested in this fantastic research hub concerned with historic and contemporary creative responses to the late medieval poem. They're also looking for contributors, so do get in contact with @michaeledenart.bsky.social! 👇

Representing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Representing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a research hub concerned with historic and contemporary creative responses to the late medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (circa 1370). Illu...

www.representing-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight.com

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 1d

You’ve reminded me that that episode made me want to seek out Charlie Bubbles because it stars Billie Whitelaw, who I was lucky enough to meet a couple of years before she died.

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 1d

It’s really quite something!

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 1d

It sure is! 🤩

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 2d

Made it over to the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities today, the new home of the English Faculty and where I’ll be lecturing this term ✨

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 2d

Academic generosity really DOES matter! We need more of it 💞

Rachael Squire @squirerachael.bsky.social · 7d

Today i'm grateful for a paper reviewer. It got major revisions with critical & challenging comments but they were delivered with kindness, thought & enthusiasm when there were plenty of opportunities (through my own ignorance and clumsiness in the paper) to do otherwise. This generosity matters 👍

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 2d

I love the title ‘She Speaks’- very much in line with my poetic adaptation of Beowulf, the women tell their side of the story!

Veronica Price @vonprice.bsky.social · 2d

Today I’m recommending 2 beautiful #NonFiction titles for #MG readers, both written by #HonorCargillMartin
#SheSpeaks… is published by @magiccatpublishing.bsky.social & #ShakespearesHeroines is published by @hachettechildrens.bsky.social
#UkKidLit

vsviewfromthebookshelves.home.blog/2025/10/05/f...

Fabulous Non-Fiction from Honor Cargill-Martin: Shakespeare’s Heroines and She Speaks: The Women of Norse Myths in their own Words

Cover art by Pauliina Hannuniemi, published by Magic Cat Publishing, 25 September 2025, ISBN:978-1917044813 Cover art by Jaimee Andrews, published by Hachette Children’s Books, 23 October 202…

vsviewfromthebookshelves.home.blog

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 3d

Cracking afternoon watching American football at Tottenham Hotspur! 🏈 Sadly the Cleveland Browns lost (my Dad’s team!) 🧡 but we had a super time, AND the cast of Ted Lasso were in attendance!!! 🤩😱🤯

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 3d

Aw thanks Matthew!! Great to meet you yesterday!

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 3d

This was such a wonderful day! Enormously grateful to @cathamclarke.bsky.social for chairing the discussion & poetry reading with the astonishingly brilliant Caroline Bergvall 🤩 (Such a thrill to share a platform with her!) And I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop session with Catherine too! ✨

Catherine Clarke @cathamclarke.bsky.social · 4d

I hugely enjoyed hosting a discussion with the brilliant @drlauravarnam.bsky.social & Caroline Bergvall today on creative engagement with #Chaucer and #medieval literature, including readings from their #poetry. Thank you @ies-sas.bsky.social & @englishassociation.bsky.social for an excellent day!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Oh that’s so good to hear, esp from you, Una! Thank you!

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Hurrah!!! I’m very interested!!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Oh this is intriguing!!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Oh thanks so much, Ben! 🥰 Hope they enjoy!

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Yes I am! It’s great.

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 4d

Thank you so much! And excellent, I love that! (I have some other versions coming up in my poetry collection too!)

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

Couldn’t agree more!! 😆

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

When I heard the news this morning I made virtually this same comment to my husband! If we women are good enough for the risen Christ himself…

Catherine Clarke @cathamclarke.bsky.social · 5d

So the church (C of E, anyway) has finally caught up with the very first moments of Christianity as a faith, in which women were the first witnesses and teachers.

Large group of male disciples to three women: 'So ladies, thanks for being the first to witness and report the resurrection and we'll take it from here'. Cartoon by @nakedpastor: https://nakedpastor.com/

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

Hadn’t it just!! 🥴

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

I would indeed! Heather is one of my colleagues here and it’s a superb book. I’d also recommend the @backlisted.bsky.social episode on the poem which was very much pitched at beginners and explored the range of translations available. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/123...

123. Beowulf — Backlisted

For this year’s Hallowe’en episode our subject is the Old English poem,  Beowulf , composed somewhere in England more than a thousand years ago. The atmospheric tale of supernatural monsters and ...

www.backlisted.fm

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

Aw, right back atcha! 🫂🥰

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

Me too, she was just extraordinary 😢

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 5d

🤣