Elisabeth (Lisa) Trischler

Profile

I am the editorial assistant for the Leeds Medieval Studies Journal. In this role I researched and implemented the transition to open access, ensuring adherence to the Directory of Open Access Journals seal of approval. I also work with scholars submitting their work on ensuring they have ORCiD IDs, their email addresses are future-proof, and help with their selection of a creative commons license. I have also gained experience with the WordPress content management system through my work with the LMS journal where I moved the journal website to WordPress and also learned LaTex and HTML.

My research explores the intersection of medieval literature, art, and history; in particular, how ideas are expressed and transmitted in the material culture of architectural space in poetry. My current doctoral project is interested in the question of how architecture and urban expansion in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Florence influenced the poetry of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia. I approach Dante’s text with a historicising methodology where I consider both the material culture of Dante’s Florence as well as its intellectual history. My method analyses textual sources in light of the material culture of late Duecento Florence, focusing on the lived experience of urban space.

I am working on my first book, entitled ‘The Material Culture of Urban Space and its Practices in Shaping the Imagination of Dante in his Commedia’, which offers ground-breaking insights into widely discussed episodes of the poem, showing how architecture and urban space inform the text alongside other aspects of material culture, as well as the intellectual, cultural, political, and religious currents which have traditionally shaped Dante studies.

I am also working on another book project in the summer of 2023 that builds on my first book by analysing the fourteenth-century expansions of London, Paris, and Florence and the representation of architecture in vernacular literature. It will demonstrate how ideas of architectural space explored within my PhD research go beyond Dante, across cultural and linguistic barriers. Its aim is to provide an understanding of how medieval writers engaged with, and were shaped by, the changing architectural spaces which surrounded them and their readers. This project will use case studies analysing the representation of architecture in vernacular medieval literature within a 100-year period (roughly 1308–1405), such as Chaucer's 'House of Fame', 'Pearl', Christine de Pizan's 'Le Livre de la Cité des Dames', and Dante's 'Commedia'.

Research interests

My research interests include medieval literature, medieval architecture, spatial theory, performativity, medieval practices of memory, philosophy, and medieval plays.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Leeds, 2022
• MA with distinction, University of Leeds, 2015
• BA with high honours, University of Toronto, 2014

Professional memberships

• AFHEA