Georgina Watson is a second-year PhD candidate at Manchester University's History Department. Her thesis, 'War, Wealth, and God's Will: The Order of St Stephen between Crusade and Commerce in the late sixteenth century' examines the disconnections of early modern Mediterranean trade, crusade and religious interactions between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Ottoman Empire. She has specific interests in the role of Christianity within commercial trading, the construction of European noble family's identities within literary texts and portraiture and the varied usage of private military orders to shape Muslim/Christian diplomacy throughout the early modern Mediterranean.

Georgina's paper for the MEMSA Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast is entitled 'The Perspective of Fakhr ad-Din al-Ma'n II'.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Katharina Strika is a third-year PhD student at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, focusing on journeys to the underworld in Renaissance texts. She is particularly interested in the coexistence of Christian and ancient mythological imaginations of the afterlife in texts of the 15th and 16th centuries. 

Katharina's paper for the MEMSA Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast explores these themes in Ulrich von Hutten's Phalarismus.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Dr Valeria Viola is a mother of two wonderful daughters and an Art teacher with experience in both architectural practice and research. She worked as an architect with a specialization in restoration (1997-2015), taught Art-related subjects at different grades of education (2005-2016) and published nine essays on baroque architecture (1999-2015). In 2020 Viola completed her PhD programme in History of Art and Architecture at the University of York (UK), with a thesis on the interconnections between architecture, devotion, and family life in Baroque Palermo. The results of her research were shared through seven essays, nine conferences and three seminars (2018-2021). She is currently engaged in integrating gender and postcolonial perspectives into school teaching, while working on a book tentatively titled "Neighbourly Relationships in Eighteenth-century Palermo". 

Dr Viola's paper for the MEMSA Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast explores masters' and servants' spaces in eighteenth-century Palermo.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

In the sixteenth century, King Henry VIII made the extraordinary decision to break away from the Catholic Church in Rome. This decision set in motion a wave of transformative changes that impacted every level of English society. In this episode, Samuel Pearson explores a fascinating manuscript collection that offers a window into how the Reformation was received by the laity in Kent, whilst offering important insights into popular politics in early modern England more generally.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Dr Euan Roger is a principal records specialist in the medieval team at The National Archives, specialising in the records of late medieval and Tudor English government, the central law courts, and the secular clergy, with a particular interest in aspects of social, medical, political and material history. His paper for the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast uncovers new evidence for the development of quarantine measures in early modern England.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Connor is a PhD student at the University of Bristol where his research interests lie in the political, social and cultural history of early modern England. His paper for the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast explores how modern social networking analysis can reshape our understanding of Tudor court politics.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Adam is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Hull working on identity and hybridity in the medieval north of England. His PhD research focuses on Yorkshire and Northumberland between 1066 and 1216, using baronial families as a lens through which to examine the distinct political, social, cultural and religious characteristics of these regions. His paper for the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries Podcast explores northern identity in the age of the Norman conquest.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

In this special keynote episode, Professor Cynthia Neville discusses the international legal treatise the Leges Marchiarum, and what this can tell us about kingship, lordship, and the state in medieval Scotland. Professor Neville is a distinguished historian of law and society in medieval Scotland. She is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

Professor Neville's paper bridges the gap between the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries podcast series and MEMSA's 15th annual conference on the same theme, to be held between Monday 19th and Wednesday 21st July. Register to attend here: https://forms.office.com/r/bKijfpGFNa

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

In this penultimate episode of the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries series, Fergal Leonard of Durham University discusses the career of Henry Leigh, a minor border officer in the last two decades of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Fergal is a third-year PhD student, and his project explores political culture and political agency in the governance of the Elizabethan West March, c. 1569 - 1603.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Giulia Calabrò is a PhD student in medieval history at the University of Trieste. Her project looks at the presence of Genoese merchants in England between 1458 and 1466, a period in which they were subject to fines and expropriations by Henry VI after a pirate tied to the city had sunk English ships in the Mediterranean. Her paper for the Crossing Borders, Contesting Boundaries podcast explores news networks in late medieval Europe by examining how news of the Battle of Towton spread to the court of the Francesco I, Duke of Milan.

Music: Aitua, 'Blind Fire', from the album Elements. Used with the kind permission of the artist. All rights reserved.