Melissa Raine | University of Melbourne (original) (raw)

Edited Collections by Melissa Raine

This unique and exciting collection, inspired by the scholarship of literary critic Stephanie Tri... more This unique and exciting collection, inspired by the scholarship of literary critic Stephanie Trigg, offers cutting-edge responses to the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer for the current critical moment. The chapters are linked by the organic and naturally occurring affinities that emerge from Trigg's ongoing legacy; containing diverse methodological approaches and themes, they engage with Chaucer through ecocriticism, medieval literary and historical criticism, and medievalism. The contributors, trailblazing international specialists in their respective fields, honour Trigg's distinctive and energetic mode of enquiry (the symptomatic long history) and intellectual contribution to the humanities. At the same time, their approaches exemplify shifting trends in Chaucer scholarship. Like Chaucer's pilgrims, these scholars speak to and alongside each other, but their essays are also attentive to 'hearing Chaucer speak' then, now and in the future.

Contemporary Chaucer Across the Centuries, 2018

Chapters and Articles by Melissa Raine

A Cultural History of Youth in the Medieval Age, 2023

In Vol. 2 of Bloomsbury's A Cultural History of Youth, Stephanie Olsen (Anthology Editor), Heidi ... more In Vol. 2 of Bloomsbury's A Cultural History of Youth, Stephanie Olsen (Anthology Editor), Heidi Morrison (Anthology Editor)

Australian Journal of Music Therapy, 2022

Social isolation and loneliness are commonly reported among autistic people, which in turn can im... more Social isolation and loneliness are commonly reported among autistic people, which in turn can impact their psychological wellbeing and quality of life. However, promoting inclusion and a sense of belonging in a meaningful group music activity may assist in enhancing social connection and wellbeing. Two five-week music workshops created with input from autistic people were offered to test the feasibility of the workshops to improve individual outcomes. The measures used to determine social connectedness, wellbeing, and perceived group inclusion respectively were: the Friendship Questionnaire (FQ), Personal Wellbeing Index-Adult (PWI- A), and Perceived Group Inclusion Scale (PGIS). Participants were also asked to respond to open ended questions and offered an interview to elaborate on their workshop experiences. Data was collected from 12 participants. Although there was an increase in mean score on the FQ, scores on the PWI-A declined. Scores on the PGIS indicated good perceived group inclusion. However, on the paired data, Wilcoxin signed-rank test revealed no significant difference on pre-test and post-test scores on the FQ or the PWI-A. Thematic analysis undertaken on the qualitative data indicated inclusion and enjoyment of the workshops. Taking the quantitative and qualitative findings together, participation in the workshops: enhanced social connection, may not improve wellbeing, yet were inclusive. Feasibility of the study as well as recommendations for future autism-friendly music workshops are discussed.

Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture, 2021

Direct knowledge of the voices and lived experiences of medieval children are largely lost to us.... more Direct knowledge of the voices and lived experiences of medieval children are largely lost to us. Fictionalised versions of childhood offer potential access to historically specific understandings of childhood; however, it is critical that representations of childhood be read with caution and sensitivity if they are to yield insights into the conditions and expectations affecting the lives of actual medieval children. The late Middle English comic narrative Jack and His Stepdame offers an object lesson in the complex but rich intersections between the lived experiences of medieval children and literary representations of childhood.

In Jack and His Stepdame, the child protagonist espouses characteristics that seem remarkably modern; he embodies a markedly “boyish” form of agency, intelligence, and capability, at once cheeky and exuberant even though vulnerable and dependent on the ethical conduct of the adults who care for him. The use of “boy” in this text constitutes an early example of the (supposedly) neutral designation of a male child rather than referring to a male of subordinate status. Its frequent repetition in Jack and His Stepdame suggests a strong celebratory element in the capacities that Jack displays. While this narrative proclaims approval for the idea of the boy, Jack’s conduct is highly constrained by the socio-economic values that structure this tale: Jack is worthy of admiration and emancipation because the process of tending to his own needs is indistinguishable from upholding the status of his father and the social milieu he represents.

Jack’s incremental ability to give voice to his experience is integral to his idealised status as male child. At the narrative’s outset, there is no legitimate means for Jack to verbalise the mistreatment he is suffering at the hands of his stepmother because, I argue, his father would be shamed. Jack unexpectedly receives three magic gifts that he uses to emancipate himself. Each time Jack employs the gifts for this purpose, space is created for his voice, and in each instance his speech reconnects him with an aspect of his life that his stepmother’s conduct has threatened, notably, his position as a diligent householder and the esteem of his father. “Voice” in this text is embodied, not conflated with language; the gift of a magical pipe extends the notion of voice through the interconnection of Jack’s breath, his innately merry disposition and the irresistible music produced, which impacts his entire community. This stands in direct opposition to the unilateral silencing to which Jack is subject at the beginning of the narrative, and serves to secure the positive aspects of Jack’s boyhood as a form of community property, as long, that is, as he demonstrates allegiance to the community’s values and priorities. The tacit acceptance of Jack’s inability to articulate his mistreatment directly, and the convoluted path to self-expression that he follows throughout the narrative, offer potentially discouraging insights into priorities around child wellbeing in late medieval England.

While Jack appears to be the first happy child who displays genuine agency in English literature, the most salient aspects of this text for understanding the lived experience of childhood reside in the unequivocal alignment of Jack’s welfare and his childish sensibility with adult male interests. Jack and his Stepdame offers a version of childhood where the child’s deepest wants and needs align seamlessly with what adults want and expect. The seeming independence of merry, mischievous Jack is “permitted” by its conformity with ideas of authority and obedience that inform the narrative.

International Journal of Wellbeing, 2020

Abstract: Many autistic people report experiencing social isolation, a recognized risk factor fo... more Abstract:
Many autistic people report experiencing social isolation, a recognized risk factor for
poor psychological wellbeing. Promoting social inclusion is therefore a vital yet complex task. Community-based creative activities such as music groups can improve individuals’ sense of
social connection and reduce the experience of social isolation. However, limited literature is available that describes autistic people’s perspectives about how to foster successful engagement in these creative and inclusive group opportunities. This project aims to gather perspectives from autistic individuals aged between 18 to 25 years to inform the design of autism-friendly music- making workshops for wellbeing. This co-design project involved a research team comprizing autistic and non-autistic academics, and an advisory group that included autistic young adults and autism advocates. Together, we designed an online survey and structured interview questions to gauge autistic people’s preferences for engagement in group-based music activities. There were 30 responses to the online survey questions which collected demographic information, opinions about group music-based activities, and views about ways to best support access and participation in the local community. In addition, five structured interviews were conducted with survey participants who volunteered to provide in-depth follow-up responses. Survey data are presented descriptively, and interview data underwent inductive thematic analysis. Participants described being motivated to join music-making workshops offered in the community and proposed various ways to improve accessibility. The qualitative themes from the survey free text and interviews suggest that both environmental and social factors work together to create a sense of safety and inclusion. In particular, a welcoming atmosphere and acceptance of diversity were expected from the workshop facilitator and group members. These findings have important implications for the co-production of future music-making workshops for the wellbeing of autistic
people.

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2018

Emotions and Social Change: Historical and Sociological Perspectives, May 2014

How successfully can we retrieve emotional engagement by readers with the texts of past periods? ... more How successfully can we retrieve emotional engagement by readers with the texts of past periods? Norbert Elias’ Civilizing Process informs this search for how medieval emotional communities negotiated the popular Middle English “Dietary” by John Lydgate. Although dismissed by critics as seemingly banal health advice, the opportunities for introspection provided by the “Dietary” to pre-modern, embodied selves are clarified by attending to the discursive and material aspects of the text, as well as the reading practices of medieval readers.

The Tale of Gareth combines Malory's interest in the ethics of the chivalric body with an emphasi... more The Tale of Gareth combines Malory's interest in the ethics of the chivalric body with an emphasis on Gareth's conduct around food. Beginning his time in Arthur's court as a kitchen hand, he is deprived of courtly alimentation, particularly meat, and the associations of social entitlement that come with the consumption of such meals. Gareth proves his chivalric worth not only by fighting, but also through his exemplary behavior whilst consuming increasingly refined meals throughout the tale, culminating in his own wedding feast. Not only do these meals articulate the non-combative qualities that attest to Gareth's social superiority; they establish Gareth as a fitting symbolic successor to Arthur and his legacy, and thus offer an assurance of the inherent worthiness of the Arthurian regime despite its eventual tragic demise.

New Medieval Literatures 7, ( 2005): Pages 101 - 126

The file available here for download is a pre-publication version of this paper.

Podcasts by Melissa Raine

Self-Reg around the Table, 2020

The first of a series of conversations about how to support children after bushfires. We listen t... more The first of a series of conversations about how to support children after bushfires. We listen to stories of families and community members who went through fires, and discuss the self-regulation needs of the children.

Melissa Raine, Cathy Horder and Robyn Gild talk about the insights that the Mehrit Centre's self ... more Melissa Raine, Cathy Horder and Robyn Gild talk about the insights that the Mehrit Centre's self reg framework offers into supporting the wellbeing of residents in aged care facilities in Australia.

In this podcast, Melissa Raine, an Honorary Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excelle... more In this podcast, Melissa Raine, an Honorary Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, and Rob Grout, a PhD candidate at the University of York, examine medieval childhood and emotions in their discussion of the fifteenth-century poem, 'The Childhood of Christ'. This poem survives in a manuscript owned and compiled by Robert Thornton. It is now housed in the British Library.

Reviews by Melissa Raine

Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 2019

Parergon, 2018

Review(s) of: Forms of individuality and literacy in the medieval and early modern periods, by A... more Review(s) of: Forms of individuality and literacy in the medieval and early modern periods, by Arlinghaus, Franz-Josef, ed., (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 31), Turnhout, Brepols, 2015, hardback, pp. viii, 317, 2 b/w, 13 colour illustrations, R.R.P. 90.00, ISBN 9782503552200.

The Medieval Review, 2015

Contemporary Chaucer Across the Centuries, 2018

A Cultural History of Youth in the Medieval Age, 2023

Australian Journal of Music Therapy, 2022

Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture, 2021

International Journal of Wellbeing, 2020

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2018

Emotions and Social Change: Historical and Sociological Perspectives, May 2014

New Medieval Literatures 7, ( 2005): Pages 101 - 126

The file available here for download is a pre-publication version of this paper.

Self-Reg around the Table, 2020

Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 2019

Parergon, 2018

The Medieval Review, 2015

Women's Studies International Forum, 1998

University of Illinois Press Blog, 2019

Self-Reg Global, 2020

How can we redefine human relationships with the environment in ways that allow both to thrive?

The Mehrit Centre, 2019

In this blog I talk about deep calmness, the senses, human connection and how children can be sup... more In this blog I talk about deep calmness, the senses, human connection and how children can be supported to feel at one with their environments.

This is the inaugural piece for a new blog, "We are listening!", about what it means for children... more This is the inaugural piece for a new blog, "We are listening!", about what it means for children and young people to have a voice, and how to support this capacity.

Blog for We The Humanities describing the development of my research interests.

How the paradigm of self that assists trauma recovery is offers insights into how children use la... more How the paradigm of self that assists trauma recovery is offers insights into how children use language, and how adults use language with children.

This blog about children, emotions and the school environment discusses the Japanese documentary ... more This blog about children, emotions and the school environment discusses the Japanese documentary Children Full of Life

For National Youth Week 2016, I interview 2 VicSRC representatives.

Blog entry discussing the "Reading the Face" Collaboratory, University of Melbourne, June 2015

Blog piece on Jack and His Stepdame for Children's Book Week

Reflections on Goody's insistence on the role in literacy in understanding emotion within specifi... more Reflections on Goody's insistence on the role in literacy in understanding emotion within specific cultural contexts.

2016 interdisciplinary symposium

For full details of my research into medieval literature, childhood voices and my work as a self... more For full details of my research into medieval literature, childhood voices and my work as a self-regulation consultant with The Mehrit Centre, please visit my website, melissaraine.com

The relationship between the self and the text is a familiar topic within literary studies. Howe... more The relationship between the self and the text is a familiar topic within literary studies. However, few of the textual methods used to study this relationship were developed specifically with medieval versions of selfhood and textuality in mind. The dualistic models of self-experience upon which many forms of literary criticism are based limit our ability to explore both the role of language in medieval concepts of selfhood, as well as excluding embodied forms of experience from consideration.
I wish to inquire into one specific aspect of embodied experience, the practice of eating, and the focus of that activity, food, within the textual field. Food exists in a particularly close relationship with the body; it is both essential for survival and heavily socially mediated. The topic of food, particularly food consumption, is found in a variety of fifteenth-century Middle English texts, suggesting that eating was endowed with considerable symbolic weight in late medieval England. To give serious consideration to the place of food within human society of any period or place is inherently challenging to conceptions of personhood that privilege the mind and intellect over a demeaned concept of the physical body as the site for emotion, irrationality, and involuntary or machine-like behaviours. Exploring the significance of food and eating in Middle English writing assists in breaking down dualistic models of selfhood, and thus permits a more open inquiry into medieval people’s beliefs about, and experiences of, their own persons, including their uses of texts.
The first section of the thesis considers humoral discourse on food, and the forms of embodied self-experience and introspection suggested by Lydgate's “Dietary”. This is followed by a discussion of Lydgate's emulation or parody of Chaucer in the “Prologue” to the Siege of Thebes, where humoral discourse and food participate in an ideological contest over monastic bodies.
The second section is concerned with issues of taste, and the coherence of communities around foods and food-related practices. Malory's Tale of Gareth provides, through Gareth’s relationship with food, an idealised expression of both Gareth’s and the Arthurian elite’s entitlement to rule, which also proves significant for understanding the subsequent unravelling of the fellowship. The Book of Margery Kempe demonstrates considerable awareness of food’s capacity to express and maintain social, as well as spiritual communities; Margery’s presence at many tables provides a basis for the “everyday” aspects of her life as a spiritual authority. The letters of John Shillingford provide an unusually fresh account of a medieval individual’s self-presentation during social and legal interactions, some involving food, and offering valuable insight into the lived negotiation of conventional behaviour.
Each of these readings maintains alertness to the limitations of the “disembodied” nature of contemporary reading practices, which are capable of projecting dualistic conceptions of selfhood onto these texts through their assumptions about the nature of language. Instead, productive alternatives are proposed for rethinking the connections between language, food, and selfhood at the close of the English Middle Ages.

The Middle English poem Pearl is remarkable for the skilful manipulation of its formal and discur... more The Middle English poem Pearl is remarkable for the skilful manipulation of its formal and discursive features, deftly changing the meaning of the narrative as it unfolds. These shifts effect a transition in the text’s protagonist, who, at the narrative’s outset, exists in a state of solipsistic, overwhelming grief, and is guided by the end towards an acceptance of the consolation associated with Christian salvation. However, the corporeal aspects of this shift have been given little attention. Using Guillemette Bolens' work on perceptual simulation and the embodied nature of reading, as well as Daniel Punday on the relationship between textual corporeality and the reader's "ingress" into the narrative, I will discuss how the intensity of the poem's appeal to the senses, especially to the thwarting of touch, plays a decisive role in establishing this new framework for comprehending loss, not only in Pearl's narrator, but in the reader.

A framework for understanding how the reading, affective subject is organized is indispensible to... more A framework for understanding how the reading, affective subject is organized is indispensible to a productive discussion of how affect participates in the process of critique. Research from the field of embodied cognition finds that “higher” cognitive functions are grounded in the intertwined affective and motor processes of the self. Accordingly, reading -- the process of making meaning from written (in this case, specifically literary) texts – is directly reliant upon the reader’s embodied, affective experience. How can such a model of embodied selfhood be incorporated into critical methodology? Guillemette Bolens’ The Style of Gestures will be considered as an innovative response to this challenge.

The letters of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter during the fifteenth-century, provide an unusua... more The letters of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter during the fifteenth-century, provide an unusually fresh account of a medieval individual’s self-presentation during social and legal interactions. As the lowest-ranked participant in a protracted and acrimonious legal dispute between the City of Exeter and its Bishop, Shillingford recounts in unusual detail for this period the emotional signs he detects in others for the clues they provide as to the reception of his case. Significantly, his letters are not private communications, but records intended to inform Exeter’s governing body of his progress at Chancery in London; paradoxically, the Mayor’s own emotional judgements and responses are thus documented partly for the purpose of strategising, and partly for accountability during this expensive process. Contrary to the modern expectation of separation between legal procedures and personal influence, the letters demonstrate that allegiances were cultivated and esteem enhanced through and around strategic and opportunistic exchanges, including gifts, which work powerfully to draw the thoughts of his judge, the Lord Chancellor, towards Shillingford’s high standing in secular Exeter, while also tactfully establishing a more personal connection. The letters thus offer valuable insight into the lived negotiation of conventional behaviour, as well as highlighting the potential for fluidity in relations between men of different rank. They constitute an unusual case study concerning the role of emotion in the advancement of material interests, articulated through an unlikely discursive location.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 20, 2005

The file available here for download is a pre-publication version of this paper.

Parergon, 2003

Parergon 20.1 (2003) homophobic subtext? Perhaps this is something which Mayer will consider in t... more Parergon 20.1 (2003) homophobic subtext? Perhaps this is something which Mayer will consider in the future. In the final analysis, Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet is a major scholarly achievement, but it is not a book which can be recommended for undergraduate students and will probably elicit almost as much irritation from specialist readers as admiration. Despite this book’s many strengths as a lifestudy, a magisterial, reader-friendly biography of Cardinal Pole still remains to be written. Paul E. J. Hammer Department of History University of Adelaide

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2018

The Medieval Review, 2015

International Journal of Wellbeing, Dec 16, 2020

International Journal of Wellbeing, 2020

Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 2019

The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2018

John Lydgate’s early fifteenth-century Siege of Thebes is best known for its Prologue’s continuat... more John Lydgate’s early fifteenth-century Siege of Thebes is best known for its Prologue’s continuation of The Canterbury Tales, in which it depicts its author meeting up with the pilgrims in Canterbury. Critics have disagreed, however, as to whether the Prologue represents a cheerful but heavyhanded tribute to Chaucer, or a less-than-amicable attempt to appropriate some of Chaucer’s literary reputation by imitating his style. thus, for John Ganim, Lydgate “has acknowledged his debt by virtually becoming a character of Chaucer,” whereas for A. C. Spearing, a more rivalrous Lydgate “kill[s] Chaucer,” “in order to live as a poet.”1 this discussion has subsequently taken on ethical as well as aesthetic dimensions, with Scott-Morgan Straker’s claim that “Lydgate establishes his authority as much by distancing himself from Chaucer’s dubious morality as by associating himself with Chaucer’s vernacular poetic.”2 However, amid these varied positions on the relationship of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, there has been little appreciation of the significance of Lydgate’s body humor. Straker touches upon “the moral authority that Lydgate represents physically in the prologue” without further elaboration, and Lee Patterson comments that “in the Prologue Lydgate corrects what he would have seen as the Chaucerian misrepresentation of monasticism in The Canterbury Tales,” without fleshing out, as it were, the details of Lydgate’s act of “correction.”3 Although John bowers acknowledges more

Parergon, 2014

Review(s) of: The style of gestures: Embodiment and cognition in literary narrative (rethinking t... more Review(s) of: The style of gestures: Embodiment and cognition in literary narrative (rethinking theory), by Bolens, Guillemette, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012, cloth, pp. xii, 233; 1 b/w illustration, R.R.P. US$65.00, ISBN 9781421405186.