Dr Alice Hazard in King’s French department has published her monograph, The Face and Faciality in Medieval French Literature (1170-1390). This book explores the face as a medieval literary motif and as a modern phenomenon.

Dr Hazard's book examines the role of the face in mediating ethical, social, emotional and psychic encounters in a series of French narratives from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as well as in a selection of fourteenth-century manuscripts.

In the context of medieval allegory, Arthurian romance and the bawdy fabliaux (a humorously indecent metrical tale or narrative poem), the book looks at how the face is, although universally understood, strangely inconsistent in what and how it communicates.

At the same time, the book explores how various modern theorists focus on the face not just as an object of study but also as a way of framing broader discussions. The book uses these ‘face-theories’ to push the boundaries of what ‘face’ means and its limitations, interrogating the idea of face as a universal and static signifier of one's state of mind or being.

This book goes towards understanding the face in our own time not as a simple reflection of one's nature but as a changing, complex and enigmatic phenomenon. And Alice would like to place thanks on her Department colleagues for contributing to the publication. 

You can find out more about the book and order a copy here.