معرفی
Dr. Graham Williams serves as Senior Lecturer in the History of English at the University of Sheffield's School of English, a position he has held since joining the institution in 2012. His academic profile spans medieval and early modern English language and literature, with complementary expertise in Anglo-Norman, Scots, Old Norse, and Latin linguistic traditions.
Education:
- PhD in English Language and Linguistics, University of Glasgow (supervised by Prof. Jeremy J. Smith and Dr. Alison Wiggins)
Research Focus: Williams employs pragmatic and stylistic methodologies to investigate historical language use, with particular emphasis on the history of emotions and epistolary culture. His work bridges manuscript studies, paleography, and digital corpus analysis across diverse textual genres—from Old English homilies to late medieval verse—with recurring attention to sincerity, speech acts, and multilingual interactions in historical contexts.
Publication Trends: His recent scholarship demonstrates sustained exploration of emotional expression in historical letters through corpus-based pragmatics, with increasing integration of digital humanities approaches. Key thematic threads include scribal practices, royal language, and the materiality of writing, consistently contextualized within social networks and emotional communities of pre-modern Britain.
Professional Engagement: Williams actively supervises graduate research and contributes to public scholarship through BBC Radio Scotland appearances and National Trust collaborations at Hardwick Hall via the AHRC-funded Letters of Bess of Hardwick Project. He convenes core modules including History of English and Historical Pragmatics while participating in Sheffield's Festival of the Mind to disseminate research on historical language and emotion.
