Our people

Dr Clare Davidson

Research Fellow, Medievalism
Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program

Areas of expertise: Middle English literature; history of emotions; gender and sexuality; medievalism

Email: clare.davidson@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9581-3618

Clare is a historian and literary scholar of late medieval and early modern England whose interdisciplinary work focuses on love, law, and medievalism. Her first book Love in Late Medieval England is contracted with Manchester University Press. Clare previously worked on the ARC Discovery Project, "A History of Early Modern Natural Resource Management," led by Susan Broomhall, where her research examined gender and property law in early modern England and how these inflected understandings of the material world. Her current research analyses the use of medievalism in the Australian legal system, bringing together her interests in the history of law and the politics of periodization.

Clare previously held a lecturing position at The University of Western Australia, where she completed her PhD and where she was also associated with the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions. She is a co-convenor of the Melbourne Feminist History Group and also has research interests in criminal law reform and therapeutic jurisprudence.

Select publications

Books

• Clare Davidson, Love in Late Medieval England. Manchester: Manchester University Press (Medieval Literature and Culture Series) (under contract).

Edited Collections

• Clare Davidson, ed. The Global Middle Ages, Volume Three in ed. Broomhall, A Cultural History of Gender (Bloomsbury) (under contract).

Articles

• Clare Davidson, Arlie Loughnan, and Sarah Murray, "Serving Those Who Serve: A Critical Assessment of the Need for a Veterans' Treatment Court or List in Australia," Current Issues in Criminal Justice2 (2022): 119­-135.
• Clare Davidson, "Chaucerian Guilt and A Treatise on the Astrolabe," The Chaucer Review: The Ethical Challenges of Chaucerian Scholarship in the 21st Century Special Edition 56.4 (2021): 341-359.
• Clare Davidson, "Reading in bed with Troilus and Criseyde," The Chaucer Review 2 (2020): 147-170.
• Clare Davidson, 'Erotic Devotion: Richard Rolle's The Form of Living', Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies: Festschrift in Honour of Philippa Maddern 20.3 (2015): 1-13.

Edited Chapters

• Clare Davidson, "'For wele or woo': lyrical negotiations of the Middle English heart," in The Feeling Heart in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Meaning, Embodiment and Making, eds Katie Barclay and Bronwyn Reddan. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter (Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture Series 67) (2019): 151-173.

Reports

• Clare Davidson and Arlie Loughnan, Proposed and actual reforms to self-defence laws in Australia and their impact on women experiencing family violence. United Kingdom: Centre for Women's Justice (2023).
• Clare Davidson and Arlie Loughnan, 'Australia' in Jenny Earle and Katy Swaine Williams, ed. Making self-defence accessible to victims of domestic abuse who use force against their abuser: Learning from reforms in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. United Kingdom: Centre for Women's Justice (2023).

Reviews

• Clare Davidson, Review: Pleasure in the Middle Ages, ed. Naama Cohen-Hanegbi and Piroska Nagy (2018), in Parergon:Journalof the Australian and New Zealand Medieval and Early Modern Association 1 (2020), 234.
• Clare Davidson, Review: The Medieval Literary: Beyond Form, ed. Robert J. Meyer-Lee and Catherine Sanok (2018), in Parergon:Journalof the Australian and New Zealand Medieval and Early Modern Association 1 (2020), 272.

Public engagement

• Clare Davidson, Arlie Loughnan, and Sarah Murray, 'The royal commission must find ways to keep veterans out of jail' The Conversation 14 Feb 2022, available at https://theconversation.com/the-royal-commission-must-find-ways-to-keep-veterans-out-of-jail-176880
• Clare Davidson and Boyda Johnstone, '"I wanted it to be a comedy": The Saintliness of Margery Kempe' review for Los Angeles Review of Books, 6 October 2018. Available at https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-wanted-it-to-be-a-comedy-on-the-saintliness-of-margery-kempe/#!
• Clare Davidson, '"Ecosexual Bathhouse" and The Parliament of Fowls: Part One' blog for Histories of Emotion: From Medieval Europe to Contemporary Australia, April 2017. Available at https://historiesofemotion.com/2017/04/28/ecosexual-bathhouse-and-the-parliament-of-fowls-part-one/
• Clare Davidson, '"Ecosexual Bathhouse" and The Parliament of Fowls: Part Two' blog for Histories of Emotion: From Medieval Europe to Contemporary Australia, April 2017. Available at https://historiesofemotion.com/2017/05/05/ecosexual-bathhouse-and-the-parliament-of-fowls-part-two/