The English and Creative Writing Club on campus is planning on hosting an exciting event this week. The Writing Club will be hosting a traditional “Ploughman’s Lunch” to celebrate Dr. Rosanne Gasse’s published book, The Feral Piers: A Reader’s Experience of the British Library Cotton Caligula A XI Manuscript of Piers Plowman. Dr. Gasse is an Associate Professor from the Department of English and Creative Writing. She teaches medieval literature as well as classical and Latin literature.
Dr. Gasse will be reading excerpts from her new book and will be hosting a question and answer session following the reading. However, she explains that her book has been out for while. “My book, The Feral Piers, was published by Cambridge Scholars Press about two years ago.” Nevertheless, she states that there is no doubt it will be an enjoyable afternoon. Dr. Gasse also touched on how the event will proceed. “I will be reading selections from my book and then answering any questions about it. The questions could be about the process of researching and writing the book or about the book’s ideas and content.” Below is an excerpt from The Feral Piers that Dr. Gasse provided, giving an insight into what will be discussed at the book reading.
“What do we mean when we talk about the text of Piers Plowman? What is the concept of a literary text when that construct exists in so many variant and feral forms, as is the case for the multiple modern editorial reconstructions and the more than fifty surviving manuscripts and early print editions of Piers Plowman? How do the anonymous roles of author, scribe, and reader intersect to create the experience of the text? How can we judge a pre-modern text’s reception history if we do not know exactly what it was that the early reader was responding to? The Feral Piers takes a daring and innovative approach to answering such questions as these.”
Anyone is welcome to attend the event with one of the best parts being the FREE lunch. That’s right the traditional “Ploughman’s Lunch” is absolutely free of charge to those who attend. The Ploughman’s Lunch will take place on January 23rd from 12:40PM to 1:30PM. The event will take place inside the Brandon University Library in the gathering space. For more information about this event you can contact the English and Creative Writing Club at brandonwritingclub@gmail.com. Should you have accessibility needs you are advised to contact the arts office at 204-727-9790 or arts@brandonu.ca in advance to ensure that proper accommodations can be made.