The Signum Scene

Join President Corey Olsen for a look at the year that has been and a discussion of Signum's direction in 2025 and beyond!

This recording from November 1, 2024.

Signum University presents Thesis Theater with Jay Moses on Saturday, November 1, 2024 at 5pm ET.

M.R. James was recognized and acclaimed for his short stories of the macabre written at the turn of the twentieth century. In the 1970’s the new genre of Folk Horror arose, basing many of its stories within the England countryside, and claiming M.R. James as a significant foundation and forerunner. While setting most of his stories in present day England, several of them are set within 17th Century England. This Thesis explores four of James’ stories with settings in 17th Century England: The Fenstanton Witch, The Ash Tree, Martin’s Close and The Rose Garden and attempts to discern what exactly drew James to this time period, but more importantly, what it was about this time period that lent itself to Folk Horror. It is the conclusion of this Thesis that the great instability of England, combining Puritan beliefs, fanatical authority, and brutal punishments, laid the seeds of paranoia and rural unease from which M.R. James and Folk Horror both created tales of terror.

About the Presenter:

Jay Moses is a pastor at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church in the DC area, teaching adjunct at the University of Maryland. His favorite memories leading to his studies at Signum are finding yellow-worn paperbacks of Ray Bradbury in his sister’s book shelf, watching the Hobbit with cheese popcorn made by his mother, and listening to the many ghost stories told by his father while camping. His wife is the best thing about him, and his children continue to wonder if he really reads his books.

About Signum Thesis Theaters:

Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!

This recording from September 28, 2024.

Signum University presents Thesis Theater with Peter DeVault on Saturday, September 28, 2024 at 10am ET.

Modern metrical analysis of Germanic alliterative poetry (GAP) has invariably proceeded from edited texts in which the poem is represented visually as verses on a printed page or screen. Of course, that is not how these poems came down to us. The manuscript form of a GA poem is
typically indistinguishable from prose, the words (and abbreviations) inscribed margin to margin on parchment, with little or no indication of where one verse ends and another begins. This manuscript arrangement is a trove for learning how medieval poets and scribes assembled
and presented their materials. Remarkably, the abstract structure of a GAP poem can be recovered from manuscript “storage” by someone having no prior familiarity with the poem. Hitherto, to present the poem has been to lose the manuscript. I propose an alternative that illuminates on the one hand the continuity between manuscript and poetic text, and on the other, the versecraft of the poet as evidenced in the text.

The annotation scheme and processing method outlined in this thesis allow us to create a TEI/Menota compatible xml document based on a medieval germanic poem realized in a particular manuscript. This document can contain several overlapping layers of information: the layout of the words on the manuscript page along with their linguistic and morphological features and decomposition into syllables; the organization of those words into poetic lines and verses; and a projection of metrical features onto this abstract structure. While being itself a data source for further programmatic analytic and comparative work, this document can in turn be transformed into an interactive html representation showing any of these layers of information. In this presentation, you will see how these methods and tools work in the context of selections from five poetic manuscripts including portions of Beowulf and the Poetic Edda.

About the Presenter:

Peter DeVault hails from the upper Midwest of the United States, where he works at a healthcare software company leading a team developing applications for clinical genomics. Having discovered Signum University in 2019 while tracking down linguistic resources for Tolkien’s invented languages, he has since immersed himself in a world of medieval Germanic
languages and texts. When he isn’t grappling with philology and metrics, Peter composes and records music and talks with his grandchild about dragons.

This recording from September 9, 2024.

Signum University presents Thesis Theater with Julia Stowe on Saturday, September 14, 2024 at 10am ET.

The concepts of time and eternity, and the words that are used to express them, have significant influence over a culture. This thesis examines how the understanding of these concepts changed in early Germanic culture with the introduction of Christianity, and how this shift is reflected in the languages and literature of the early Germanic world. Focusing on West Germanic languages and literature from the 8th to 10th centuries, it explores how a shift in a cultural conception of time instigates broader and deeper cultural transformations and linguistic change. The perception of time as cyclical and endless, yet enduringly doomed, as can be glimpsed in pre- Christian Germanic cultures, is contrasted with the conceptualization of time as a finite creation and eternity as an existence wholly outside of time’s boundaries, the view introduced to early medieval Germania through early Christian writings. By considering how an understanding of time and eternity affects a culture and by analyzing texts from this era, we can examine how the introduction of Christian theological and philosophical thought surrounding these concepts influenced the greater culture, and how that influence is reflected in the language and literature.

About the Presenter:

Julia Stowe began studying with Signum University in 2020 with plans to complete a graduate certificate. After the first course, however, a general interest in medieval literature and Germanic philology had turned to passion that has continued to grow in the past few years of working towards an MA. Outside of academic interests, she is an herbalist, graphic designer, and avid gardener, and is delighted at the prospect of staying connected with the Signum community in the future through auditing and SPACE courses.

About Signum Thesis Theaters:

Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!

This recording from August 10, 2024.

Signum University presents Thesis Theater with Robert Black on Saturday, August 10, 2024 at 4pm ET.

This paper proposes to compare once again the heroes Beowulf and Böðvarr Bjarki, using linguistics and critiques of the heroes to build on the traditional approaches of comparison through folktale, etymological, and literary analysis to examine the degree to which Beowulf may be considered a hero or the praised object of censure. After summarizing their mode of Germanic Heroism and lightly comparing the heroes’ stories and reviewing the current state of scholarship on the Bear’s Son Tale as applied to these analogues and the role of the Dragon in Beowulf, attention is given to the use and significance of the term aglæca in Beowulf, including its application to the eponymous hero. Further consideration is given to Beowulf’s fate as a Christianised Germanic Hero, and it is argued that the poet subtly critiques Beowulf for the shortcomings endemic to his particular idiom of heroism, in contrast with absence of critique of Böðvarr. This evidence and reasoning provide additional support for the argument that Beowulf was composed in an Anglo-Latin and thus Christianised England, and allow for fresh examination of the implications thereof.

About the Presenter:

Robert Black earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Austin College and has taught English Language & Literature at various levels for the past dozen years. When he has free time, he enjoys reading, hiking, a pint of bitter, reading, whistling, watching & discussing movies & shows, and more reading. But what is best in his life is raising three lovely children with his wonderful wife in their native Texas.

About Signum Thesis Theaters:

Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!