The future of the humanities, philosopher Judith Butler argues, is bound up with two other questions, that of the future itself and that of humanity. The value of the humanities depends on its public futures, and on interconnections of the arts and the humanities that are already evident forms of engagement and practice. That this is a familiar argument is part of its point; “is there any chance that the future of the humanities is not something utterly new, but resides as practice and potential in some of its current methods?” Butler asks rhetorically.

Butler’s question about the futures of public humanities invites further reflection on the scholarly practices of humanities research now, in its futures, and its pasts.

This lecture draws on examples from English studies, medieval studies and the humanities, the three areas in which Lees conducts her work, to explore what the humanities in practice tell us about their potential at this critical juncture.

About the Speaker

Clare A. Lees is Professor of Medieval Literature, Director of the Institute of English Studies, and Vice Dean of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. She is a Fellow of the English Association and a Fellow of King’s College London.

Lees's research interests include the early medieval literatures, languages, and cultures of Britain and Ireland, gender, and sexuality studies, and histories of place and belief. Her current work explores how modern and contemporary poets, writers, and artists engage with early medieval cultures. Her public work includes the BBC2 documentary series, "Art that Made Us" (April 2022 and BBC iplayer), consultancy for Jeremy Deller’s short film "Deliverers" about the Lindisfarne Gospels, for the Laing Gallery, Newcastle (2022), and participation in the Newcastle Poetry Festival (since 2018).

Her recent publications include "Literature to 1200," co-edited with Joshua Davies, "Yearbook of English Studies 52" (2022); "The Contemporary Medieval in Practice," with Gillian R. "Overing" (UCL Press, 2019); "Remembering Æthelflæd, 1854–2019,” Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England, ed. Rebecca Hardie (De Gruyter, 2023); and “Old English at the Midcentury: Poetry, Scholarship, and Fiction in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s,” Thinking of the Medieval: Midcentury Intellectuals and the Middle Ages, ed. Benjamin A. Saltzman and R. D. Perry (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Lees is also the editor of "The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature" (Cambridge University Press, 2013; paperback 2016).

Lees has worked collaboratively throughout her career, often with Gillian R. Overing of Wake Forest University. In 2016–18, she held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for "The Contemporary Arts and Early Medieval Culture in Britain and Ireland." She was the founding Director of the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP), an AHRC-Doctoral Training Partnership (King’s College London, University College London, School of Advanced Study, University of London, with Queen Mary, University of London), and has a longstanding commitment to postgraduate and early career research.

About the Series

All This Rising: The Humanities in the Next Ten Years features ideas and methods that will mark new paths for the humanities in the next decade. Visitors consider the motives and conventions of their work in progress, how it converses with its discipline, and what it portends for the humanities.