Martha Baldon

My research interests include Old French and Middle English Arthurian romance, sensory experience and manipulation in medieval narratives, the transmission of romance narratives, Middle English alliterative poetry, and emotions in medieval literature. I have published on the Old French and Middle English Grail narratives, focussing on a range of topics, including sight, space, and selfhood. My current research project, entitled 'Illusion, Delusion, and Hallucination: Exploring the Boundaries of Sensory Manipulation in Old French and Middle English Literature’, focuses on the relationship between sensory manipulation and individual’s emotional response to a given stimulus in a range of texts from the High and Late Middle Ages.

I am also currently working on an impact project called 'Leaving an Impression: Connecting the Medieval Period to the Present Day through Affective Touch'. This project uses medieval methods of ‘reading through feeling’ to mediate emotions that may be difficult to express verbally. The project works with several targeted demographics for whom physical and emotional touch can be complex and aims to use haptic interaction with words and images as a way of experiencing and communicating difficult emotions. The overall aim of the project is to develop a therapeutic tool that supports emotional and physical wellbeing through the somatic expression of emotional experiences. 

For more information see the project website here: https://leavinganimpression.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/

The project was also featured as a case study for the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement:

https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/whats-happening/pep-network/leaving-impression-connecting-medieval-period-present-day-through