
Dr Debby Banham
Degrees
MA PhD
Awards
American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Fellowship, 2016–17, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library residency, 2017.
Research Interests
Social and economic history of early medieval England, especially medicine, diet and food production, and monastic sign language
Biography
I have recently retired from teaching manuscript studies and other medieval subjects at Birkbeck College in London, and am also an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, where I teach Anglo-Saxon history and manuscript studies. I’m Director of Studies in ASNaC at ±«ÓãÖ±²¥ and Lucy Cavendish Colleges, and a senior member at Newnham. Having been a ‘non-standard’ student myself (I returned to education at the age of 29 after working as an agricultural labourer), I’m very keen to encourage people who see themselves as ‘not the Cambridge type’. I’m currently working on a research project on the making and meaning of bread in early medieval England with Professor Martha Bayless, and editing one of the oldest medical texts in English with Dr Christine Voth.