Roberta Frank Lecture

ISSEME is delighted to announce that the first Roberta Frank Lecture will take place at the 2025 Biennial Conference in Düsseldorf.

Professor Roberta Frank, a groundbreaking scholar of Old English and Old Norse culture, language, and poetics, was University Professor at the University of Toronto, and afterward held the Marie Boroff Professorship in English at Yale University. Throughout her career—not least as a co-founder of the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (then called ISAS)—she has been a constant and tireless supporter of scholarship on early medieval northern Europe.

In honour of her many contributions and, especially, of her inspirational mentorship of generations of students and junior colleagues, ISSEME will name a plenary lecture at its biennial conference ‘The Roberta Frank Lecture.’ This lecture will be delivered by a researcher who, having received the PhD, has not yet received tenure or permanent security of employment. Each Roberta Frank Lecturer will be selected by a committee including ISSEME’s President, Executive Director, and the conference’s local organizers, advised by ISSEME’s board and past Roberta Frank Lecturers.

The first Roberta Frank Lecture will be supported in part by an anonymous donation given to subsidize the Lecturer’s travel and conference costs, so that questions of institutional or personal funding need not affect their decision to deliver the lecture. To continue supporting the Roberta Frank Lecture in future, ISSEME is now actively seeking donations.

We hope you will consider giving even a small amount, to help us honour Roberta Frank and her work, and to continue that work in bringing the best new scholars to share their ideas with the field.