Julia Bourke

BMD1I am a second-year PhD student at Queen Mary University of London. My research examines religious emotion in medieval England, exploring the ways in which particular emotions were trained or cultivated over time through specific meditative practices. As well as traditional historical methodologies, I also draw on modern findings from the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology. As a case study, my doctora
l thesis focuses on the Cistercian monastic order and their practices of affective meditation. However, my Masters dissertation (Jesus College, Cambridge, 2013-14) examined anchoritic guidance writing, and I have a general interest in the literature of spiritual guidance. My DEMM project involves editing a previously unrecognised anchoritic guide addressed to a recluse ‘Rainilva’.