TORCH Book at Lunchtime welcomes Nicholas Perkins, Professor of Medieval Literature and Fellow of St Hugh’s College to discuss his book The Gift of Narrative in Medieval England. The book places medieval narratives in dialogue with theories and practices of gift and exchange.

“This remarkable study…a brilliant response to Derrida’s injunction that we try to ‘think the gift’ “ (Walter Wadiak)

“Nicholas Perkins’s book is itself a gift, in which the elusive phenomenon of the gifted object has found its ideal, answering intelligence: lucidly scrupulous, attuned as much to the book as a gift as to the gift in books and ready to draw as much on anthropology as on the material of the history of the book. Like all gifts it’s radiant” (James Simpson)

Professor Perkins curated the Gifts and Books Exhibition which ran from June to October at the Weston Library in Oxford, and will also discuss the opportunities that the exhibition gave to engage a broad audience with his research. Join Professor Perkins and an expert panel including Professor Helen Swift (Medieval French Studies, Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages) and Dr Lucy Brookes (Fitzjames Research Fellow, Medieval English Language and Literature) to discuss The Gift of Narrative in Medieval England.