Jasmin Higgs

Thesis title:

Writing Runes: Determining Functional Variation in Early Runic Inscriptions

My research is interested in determining the functions of runic writing in the pre-Old English and early Old English runic corpus c.400-650AD. In particular, I am focused on adapting pragmaphilology, an approach from historical pragmatics, to fragmentary or small data sets.

Research Area

Languages and Literature

Publications

Higgs, Jasmin (2017). 'Examine the value of place names as evidence for the history, landscape and,especially, language(s) of your chosen area: North Essex'. Innervate: Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies 10, 79-90.

Higgs, Jasmin. (forthcoming, 2021). 'Review: Anglo-Saxon Micro-texts (2019), eds. Lenker and Kornexl', TOEBI newsletter XXVIII.

Conferences

'The Function of Early Runic Inscriptions', New Voices in Medieval Studies: the Annual York CMS Postgraduate Conference, 27th June 2019.

'Functions of the pre-Old English Runic Inscriptions', Medieval Research Centre Seminars, University of Leicester, 16th February 2021.

'Adapting pragmaphilology for runic data', Medieval Postgraduate Seminars, University of Nottingham, 25th Novemeber 2021.

Public Engagement & Impact

Object Handler (2017): object handler for the museum exhibit 'Vikings: Rediscover the Legend' (2017), where I developed basic skills in object handling and public engagement

Curator (2019): curator for 'Vikings in the East Midlands: forming relationships, forging identities', where as part of a team I chose and researched the items for display; researched and wrote a catalogue and display pannels for each item; and physically installed the exhibit

Editor (2019- ongoing) I run www.earlyrunes.wordpress.com, a site aiming to make early runic inscriptions accessible to amateur linguists and historian, and I am also an Editor for the medieval postgraduate research blog 'The (Not So) Dark Ages'

Cataloguer/digitiser (2017- ongoing): I am a volunteer cataloguer and digitser in the archives and library of the National Justice Museum Nottingham as part of their Heritage Lottery Fund funded project 'Past & Present'

Other Research Interests

historical linguistics, especially historical pragmatics

the history of orthography and writing systems

onomastics and place-names studies

the use and appropriation of runes or rune-like symbols in folk horror films

Arthurian legend adaptions

Memberships

Student memebership for Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland.
Student membership for Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland.

Awards

2018 Alfred Oscroft Essay Prize.

2018-19 Christine Fell Award.

2020-24 Midlands 4 Cities Funding.

Training and further education.

Qualifications.

2015-2018 BA (Hons) English, University of Nottingham - 1st Class

2018-2019 MA Viking & Anglo-Saxon Studies, University of Nottingham - Distinction

2018 TQUK Level 5 Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (RQF), The TEFL Academy - Merit.

Workshops, courses, etc.

2021 Royal Literary Fund, 'Writing for First Years'

2021 Summer School in Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden

Historical linguistics

Writing systems

2021 The Language Hub, Nottingham

Elementary German (A0)

Pre-Intermediate 1 German (A1)

Pre-Intermediate 2 German (A2)