Anya Adair

Dr. Anya Adair’s research centers on medieval English law and legal culture, as well as pre-modern English literature. Her focus is the early medieval period (c.550-1200), but her research extends also to Old Norse and Anglo-Latin, medieval language interaction, book history and manuscript studies, poetry and poetics, digital humanities, and the history of the English language.

Dr. Adair holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne and graduate degrees in English from Melbourne, Oxford and Yale. Her present research seeks to unite more closely the fields of medieval law and medieval literature, and to provide insight into the intellectual, emotional and social dimensions of legal and literary production across the period. Her interest in legal and literary culture takes her work into the history of emotion, historical linguistics, religious writing, poetry, poetics and rhetoric, as well as palaeography, codicology, and the history of law.

Research Area

• Pre-Modern Law and Literature
• Legal History before 1600
• History of Language

Companies

• Company Director College Street Writers (2022)
• Assistant Professor The University of Hong Kong (2018)
• Lecturer in English University of Sydney (2017 — 2018)
• McDougal Graduate Teaching Fellow, Yale Center for Teaching and Learning Yale University (2015 — 2016)
• Lecturer and Subject Coordinator The University of Melbourne (2011 — 2011)
• English Teacher St. Vincent Institute of Education (2006 — 2010)
• Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) Training Instructor St. Vincent Institute of Education (2006 — 2010)
• Volunteer Legal Assistant Central Higlands Community Legal Service (2009 — 2009)
• English Teacher TEC Education (2002 — 2006)

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), English Language and Literature, Medieval Yale University (2011 - 2018)
• Master of Arts (M.A.), English Language and Literature Yale University (2011 - 2016)
• Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), English Language and Literature Yale University (2011 - 2016)
• Master of Studies, English Language and Literature 650-1550 University of Oxford (2012 - 2013)
• Master of Arts (M.A.), Old English Literature University of Melbourne (2009 - 2011)
• Diploma of Modern Language (Russian) University of Melbourne (2005 — 2009)
• Bachelor of Arts (Honours) University of Melbourne (2003 — 2009)
• Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) University of Melbourne (2003 — 2009)