Aidan Conti
Position
Professor
Affiliation
- aidan.conti@uib.no
- Phone number
- +47 55588092
- Visitor address
-
Sydnesplassen 7
5007 Bergen - Postal address
-
P.O. Box 7805NO-5020 BergenNorway
Aidan Conti
Position
Professor
Affiliation
Research groups
Short info
Research
Research Interests
Medieval Latin sermon collections and their dissemination; medieval manuscript compilation and production; the promulgation of norms through written and oral communication practices in the Middle Ages
Short bio
As an experienced researcher of medieval textual culture, Aidan Conti examines how texts were produced, transmitted, adapted, and conceptualised across linguistic and cultural boundaries in medieval Europe. Employing methodologies from philology, palaeography, codicology, and literary history, Conti’s research demonstrates a sustained interest in writing as a historically situated practice shaped by material conditions, institutional frameworks, and intellectual agendas. Rather than treating medieval texts as fixed artefacts, his work foregrounds processes of copying, revision, translation, and compilation as creative acts. Against this background, a major strand of his research concerns homiletic literature and pastoral instruction in early and high medieval Europe.
Presently, his co-authored book, A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception, brings together two other internationally recognized authorities on early Christian narratives to reveal the earliest story of Christ’s descent into the underworld. This ground-breaking book examines the myriad ways that translators and scribes engaged and adapted this text over a millennium after its composition.
In addition to his research publications, Conti is an experienced editor, collaborator, and research leader. As a recognized expert on the variation in medieval manuscripts, he served as a member of the editorial team for Handbook of Stemmatology: History, Methodology, Digital Approaches (2020), a foundational volume with over 30 contributors from Europe, N. America and Asia. He was also co-editor (with Orietta Da Rold and Philip Shaw) of Writing Europe, 500–1450: Texts and Contexts (2015), a volume that foregrounds multilingualism and textual mobility across medieval Europe.
Conti came to Bergen in 2004 as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Medieval Studies Centre of Excellence (SFF-1 2002-2012). After serving as co-leader (2008-2012, with Else Mundal) for the Arrival of Writing team and acting co-director (with Leidulf Melve) of the Centre, Conti began full-time as an associate professor of medieval Latin at the Department of Literary, Linguistic and Aesthetic studies. Shortly thereafter, Conti spent a year as a visiting associate professor at the University of Stavanger where he taught in the M.A. program for Literacy Studies. He has served as leader for the Research Group in Medieval Philology at LLE, UiB for several periods, including 2017-2021 when the research group was awarded a UiB Humanities Faculty Grant which fostered a productive research environment for several PhD-researchers in Latin and Old Norse. He is presently (2025-2026) the Teaching Coordinator at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies where he coordinates the teaching portfolios of 10 BA programs and their MA equivalents.
Teaching
I teach Latin at all levels of the B.A. program in classical philology and the M.A program in Latin. In particular, together with Åslaug Ommundsen, I teach medieval Latin with a particular emphasis on book history, LAT107.
I am also responsible for KUN209: Art, Rhetoric and Traditions of Learning in the Pre- and Early Modern Period. This course uses a cultural-historical approach to examine art (ars/tekne), the rhetorical tradition and ways of understanding the natural world in antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Central to the course is the role of visual expression in discourses of knowledge.
I have been co-supervisor or supervisor for the following doctoral thesis:
Inka Moilanen, Writing the Order. Religious-Political Discourses in Late Anglo-Saxon England(2011)
Lidia Negoi, Dominicans, Manuscripts, and Preaching in Medieval Aragon (XIV). A Social History of Communication (2016)
Synnøve Myking, The French Connection: Norwegian Manuscript Fragments of French Origin and their Historical Context (2017)
I have also supervised or co-supervised the following M.A. theses:
Lars Hansen, "While Galba was Still Alive: A comparative study of Tacitean vocabulary and language" 2013)
Johannes von Achen, “Teleological sentiments from Saint Augustine's De Civitate Dei contra Paganos and the extra- inter- and subtextual potentiality of appeal to its pagan aristocratic reader” (2013)
Marit Mikkelsen, "Ffor the knyghtys tabylle and ffor the kyngges tabille: An edition of the Fifteenth-Century Middle English Cookery Recipes in London, British Library, Sloane 442 " (2015, UiS)
Klaudia Krug, "Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Ubervilles and the Antithesis of Courtly Love" (2015, UiS)
Kristin Marhaug Hartveit, “Ad notandum, inveniendum, memorandum: Funksjonen av Notamonogrammer i et Cistercienser-manuskript fra sent 1100-tall" (2016)
Camilla Fitjar, " First and second language lexical selection in children while reading", M.A. (2016, UiS)
Publications
2010
- Aidan Keally Conti (2010). Review of Reality Fictions: Romance, History, and Governmental Authority, 1025–1180 by Robert M. Stein. (external link)
- Aidan Keally Conti (2010). Reality Fictions: Romance, History, and Governmental Authority, 1025-1180. (external link)
- Aidan Keally Conti (2010). Markets for Books before the Book Market: How does a sacred artefact transform into a tradeable commodity?. (external link)