Hetta Howes

Dr Hetta Howes is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at City, University of London and Programme Director for the BA in English. As a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker she is committed to communicating her research to a wide audience, regularly contributing to broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4 as well as publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, BBC History Extra, and The Conversation.

Hetta is interested in the stories that women were telling in the Middle Ages as well as the conceptions (and misconceptions) of women that still inform our thinking today. Her research focuses on women's writing in medieval literature, and especially on the relationship between women's bodies and water. Her academic monograph, 'Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature' was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2021. It focuses on devotional writings by and for women, and draws on a range of disciplines, including medical humanities, the history of the emotions, and ecocriticism. Her trade book, 'Poet, Mystic, Widow. Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women', was published by Bloomsbury Continuum and University of California Press in 2024. It aims to show that, despite the patriarchal infrastuctures of the time and the challenges they faced, there were still plenty of medieval women who were leaders and innovators - women who managed to change the world.

Hetta is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and teaches on a number of different modules on the BA and MA programmes in MCCI at City. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from Queen Mary University of London. She welcomes applications for PhD supervision from prospective applicants interested in late-medieval devotional literature, particularly writing by and for women; the history of the emotions; fluidity and transformation; modern preoccupations with the medieval world.