Rate My Professor Emma Cayley

Professor Emma Cayley serves as Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies and Professor of Medieval French at the University of Leeds, a position she has held since joining the university in September 2019. Prior to this, she was at the University of Exeter from 2003 to 2019, where she also served as Head of Modern Languages from 2011 to 2016. Her academic journey began at the University of Oxford, where she earned a BA in French and Latin with first-class honours, an MSt in European Literature with distinction, an MA, and a DPhil in 2003 from St Anne’s College. She commenced her research career as Laming Junior Research Fellow at Queen’s College, Oxford, from 2002 to 2003. Cayley has received funding from the AHRC, including a Project Fund grant through REACT for collaborative research developing a tablet app with creative industry partners.

Cayley’s research focuses on medieval French literature, society, and culture from 1300 to 1550, encompassing French poetry by Alain Chartier and Christine de Pizan, gender studies, literary and poetic communities, text and image relations, manuscript studies, the history of the book, material culture, and digital humanities. Her major publications include Debate and Dialogue: Alain Chartier in his Cultural Context (Oxford University Press, 2006), Chartier in Europe (co-edited with Ashby Kinch, Gallica/Boydell & Brewer, 2008), Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe 1350–1550: Packaging, Presentation and Consumption (co-edited with Susan Powell, Liverpool University Press, 2013), and A Companion to Alain Chartier c.1385–1430: Father of French Eloquence (co-edited with Daisy Delogu and Joan E. McRae, Brill, 2015). She has edited collaborative journal issues for the Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences and is preparing co-edited volumes on courtly communities for Liverpool University Press. In leadership, she chairs the University Council of Modern Languages since 2021, previously serving as Vice-Chair for External Engagement and Communication; she is President of the International Courtly Literature Society’s British Branch since 2017 and International Executive since 2019. Cayley has been co-editor of French Studies (2016–2021), serves on editorial boards for Encomia and Leeds Medieval Studies, and is series editor for 'Material Culture and the Medieval World' at I.B. Tauris. Her contributions extend to digital projects like the Exeter Book digitization and app, AHRC peer review, and public media engagements on languages and culture.