Dr Ayoush Lazikani, a lecturer in English at Jesus College, has published a new book that offers a comparative study of emotion in Arabic Islamic and English Christian contemplative texts c.1100-1250, contributing to the emerging interest in ‘globalization’ in medieval studies. 

In Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, 1100–1250: Cry of the Turtledove (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) Ayoush argues for the necessity of placing medieval English devotional texts in a more global context and seeks to modify influential narratives on the ‘history of emotions’ to enable this more wide-ranging critical outlook.

 

The book examines the dialogic encounters generated by comparative readings of Muhyddin Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240), ‘Umar Ibn al-Fārid (1181-1235), Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtarī (d. 1269), Ancrene Wisse (c. 1225), and the Wooing Group (c. 1225). Investigating the two-fold ‘paradigms of love’ in the figure of Jesus and in the image of the heart, the (dis)embodied language of affect, and the affective semiotics of absence and secrecy, she demonstrates an interconnection between the religious traditions of early Christianity and Islam.

The book’s publication is a double celebration for Ayoush as she’s just been confirmed as Jesus College’s Departmental Lecturer in English for the next three years, covering the position for Professor Marion Turner, who is Chair of the Faculty Board.

Ayoush, who has taught English at a number of Oxford colleges and the Faculty of English, specializes in devotional writing of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Her research considers English, Arabic, Anglo-Norman, and Latin texts, and she has particular interests in literature written for religious recluses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She has published widely in these areas, including in her first monograph Cultivating the Heart : Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (University of Wales Press, 2015).

Ayoush also features in a new Jesus College film about the History thesis of well-known alumnus TE Lawrence, which can be viewed here.