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Staff Profile

Dr Aditi Nafde

Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature

  • Email: aditi.nafde@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: 0191 208 7769
  • Address: School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics
    Percy Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
Background

I studied English Language and Literature at UCL as an undergraduate before studying for an MA in Medieval Literature at UCL and a DPhil at Oxford. I then held lectureships at Oxford and was a visiting lecturer at UCL before joining the School of English at Newcastle University in 2014 as a Lecturer in Medieval Literature.

From February 2019 to July 2020 (extended to Sept 2022), I held an AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellowship and was PI on a project entitled Manuscripts After Print c.1450-1550. More information about this project can be found under the 'Research' tab. 

I am currently Chair of the Joint UG Board of Examiners. 

Research

I am a book historian and my research interests are in late medieval literature, especially literary manuscripts and early print. My DPhil examined the manuscript presentation of the poetical works of Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve in a crucial period of book production in the early fifteenth century. 

My new project, Manuscripts after Print c.1450-1550, was generously funded by an AHRC Early Career Leadership award. The project explores the endurance and adaptability of handwriting in response to technological change. It asks how the invention of the printing press affected scribal practice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. More broadly, it considers the continued significance of handwriting from the age of manuscripts to the age of digital books.

You can find out more about the project and its events here and visit the project's digital exhibition here. Information on the project's app, Hands-On Reading, which explores the relationship between digital writing and reading, will follow shortly. 

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

SEL3090 Chaucer, Chivalry, and Heresy in the Middle Ages (Module Leader)

SEL2219 Monsters, Misery, Miracles: Heroic Life in Old English Literature (Module Leader)

SEL2210 Independent Research Project

SEL1004 Introduction to Literary Studies 2

SEL1023 Transformations 

Postgraduate Teaching

SEL8543 Manuscript, Print, Digital 

PhD Supervision: I currently supervise a number of doctoral candidates jointly with Durham University. I'd welcome enquires from students interested doctoral projects on late medieval literature, book history, and editing. 

Qualifications

I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Publications