Online Seminar Series – Every Wednesday, 5 pm CET

Zoom

After our winter break, we’re excited to announce the fifth meeting of our seminar series, “Entangled Histories: Borders and Cultural Encounters from the Medieval to the Contemporary Era”. This series, promoted by the Faculty of Communication and the Master’s Programme in Media and Cultural Studies at Üsküdar University, brings together academics, students, and curious minds to explore how borders — political, cultural, social, epistemic, disciplinary, and symbolic — shape our world, our communication, and our histories.

When: Every Wednesday at 5 pm (Central European Time)

Where: Online via Zoom

Zoom link for all meetings: https://tinyurl.com/aumv88jz

We’re back after the holidays and will continue weekly until 1 July! (Browse our programme at https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/programme?authuser=0 )

Next Seminar: January 14, 2026

Speaker: Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández (University of Granada)

Title: Crossing Epistemological Borders: New Ways of Studying Alliteration in Old English Verse

About the talk: How can we study ancient poetry in new ways? In this seminar, Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández will show how his project bridges disciplinary and methodological borders by combining traditional philological analysis with digital, data-driven approaches. His new database covers over 40,000 lines of Old English verse, allowing researchers to explore patterns of alliteration and metre with both classic and modern tools. By crossing boundaries between close reading and statistical methods, this work opens up fresh perspectives on how we understand early medieval English poetry—and on how different disciplines can work together.

About the speaker

Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández is Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the University of Granada, where he leads a major research project on Continental Sources of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, funded by the Spanish State Research Agency. He specialises in medieval English language and literature, especially Old English poetry. He has published widely, including as co-editor of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016) and contributor to The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014). His research has been recognised with several awards, including the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2013–2014) and the “Excellence in Knowledge” Research Award of Grupo Caja Rural (2017).

Join us for lively discussions and new insights into how borders, of all kinds, shape our lives, our cultures, and our research!