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Programme

Thu 23 October 2025: Trip to the Abbey Library of St. Gallen

13.30	Meet at St. Gallen Main Station (Meeting Point)
14.00-15.30	Abbey Library St. Gallen (reading room, library exhibition, vault exhibition)
16.00-17.30	Exhibition Abbey Archives
	Drinks / Dinner / Transfer to Zurich (optional / self-pay)

Fri 24 October 2025

8.45-9.15	Registration, Coffee & Croissants
9.15-9.30	Opening
Session I	Medicine and magic
9.30-10.00	Ida Meerto (University of Turku): ‘The Role of Latin in the Use of Old English Lexical Items for Witches’
10.00-10.30	Rihab Ayed (University of Zurich): ‘The Hierarchical Organisation of the Semantic Field of “Medicine” in Middle English’
10.30-11.00	Ruby Ku (University of Göttingen): ‘Two Charms in Göttingen MS Philol. 163n’
	Coffee break
Session II	Borrowings and binomials
11.30-12.00	Melanie Sprau (LMU Munich): ‘Binomials and Multinomials in Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Boke Named The Gouernour: Structures and Functions’
12.00-12.30	Marina Asián (University of Zurich): ‘Norse-derived Terms and Native Synonyms in Havelock the Dane: Patterns of Lexical Choice and Semantic Distribution’
	Lunch (Mensa UZH)
Session III	Space and environment
14.00-14.30	Jasmine Wolfensberger (University of Zurich): ‘A Pilot Study on the Spatial Vocabulary in Old English’
14.30-15.00	Chen Cui (University of Lausanne & Ca' Foscari University of Venice): ‘The Beowulf-Poet’s Sense of Human-Water Relationships’
	Coffee break
Session IV	Sexual euphemisms and insults
15.30-16.00	Claire Poynton-Smith (Trinity College Dublin): ‘Bestelich Gederunge, Scheomelese Somnunge: Lexical Expressions that Present Intercourse as a Perverted Gathering in Early English’
16.00-16.30	Yannick Ganz (LMU Munich): ‘Sexual Insults in Old English – Not Used, Lost, or Not Found?’
	Break

KOL-D-Lichthof Nord

Session V	Poster session & book launch / drinks & nibbles
16.45-17.30	Anastasya Oberwies (Universität Duisburg-Essen): ‘The Grammaticalization of the Indefinite Article in West-Germanic Languages’ Anja Isabel Schellenberg (University of Zurich): ‘The Fusion-confusion of Rune form Variants ᚷ Gyfu, ᛄ Gear, and ᛡ Iar’ Katharina Huber (LMU Munich): ‘Diachronic Explanations for Present-day Irregularities in the Grammatical Number of the Lexeme Foot as a Unit of Measurement’ Linda Steiner (UZH): ‘The Thames Scramasax: A Pragmatic Reintroduction’ Ramona Meier (UZH / Ghent University): ‘The Origins of the ᚻ in the Old English Futhorc’ Tabea Hilbe (UZH): ‘The Viking as the “Other”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Alfredian texts’
17.30-17.45	Annina Seiler & Nicole Studer-Joho: Book launch ‘Old English in Switzerland’

from 19.00

Conference dinner at Zunfthaus Linde Oberstrass (Universitätstrasse 91, 8006 Zürich)

Sat 25 October 2025
PLH (English Department, Room PLH-1-102)

8.45-9.00	Coffee & croissants
Session VI	Translation, transmission and textual variation
9.00-9.30	Moritz Draschner (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): ‘The Codicology of Fragmentary Floire et Blancheflor Witnesses’
9.30-10.00	Carolina Ruthenbürger (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): ‘Valuing the Variants in the Middle English Floris and Blancheflour Tradition’
10.00-10.30	Olena Danylovych (University of Lausanne): ‘The Mirrour of Simple Soules: MN’s Translation and Innovations’
	Coffee break
Session VII	Updates on ongoing projects
11.00-12.00	Winfrid Rudolf (University of Göttingen): Electronic Corpus of Homilies in Old English (ECHO) Olga Timofeeva (University of Zurich): Waxing and Waning Words: Lexical Variation and Change in Middle English (WAW-ME) Antony Henk (Ruhr-Universität Bochum): Introducing the LEM: Lehrgruppe Englisches Mittelalter
	Lunch
Session VIII	Form, function and faith
13.00-13.30	Elliot Vale (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena): ‘An “Old Saxon Mini Epic of Damnation” in Palatinus Latinus 1447’
13.30-14.00	Nils Rademacher (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg): ‘Optionality in Dative Marking and Pragmatic Prominence in Early Middle English: A Functional Approach to Syncretism’
14.00-14.30	Rahel Huwyler (University of Zurich): ‘“Damysell, þat can ȝe best do”: The Use of Thou and Ye in a Selection of Saints’ Lives from the South English Legendary and the Northern Homily Cycle’
14.30-14.45	Closing
	Farewell drinks