Senior Bevin Killen has been awarded the Emma Kafalenos Prize for her honors thesis work "Modor, ides, āglǣc-wīf: gender, violence, and grief in Beowulf".
Modor, ides, āglǣc-wīf: gender, violence, and grief in Beowulf focuses on the themes of gender, grief, and monstrosity in the Old English epic poem Beowulf as represented by the role of bloodfeuds and peace-marriages in two key episodes of the poem. Each episode contains a "clustering" ot three women, appearing separately but bound by a common theme that runs through their scenes. The thesis discusses the two episode clusterings, as well as a comparison of the women of Beowulf to those of the Old Norse Njáls Saga and the Old English poem Judith, and demonstrates how the grief of Grendel's mother deliberately complicates the boundaries of humanity and monstrosity in the poem: in other words, Grendel's mother exemplifies how this fundamentally human emotion can take monstrous shape.
Congratulations, Bevin!
