John D. Niles, Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Professor of English Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, has long been a major voice in Old English studies. This special issue of the international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal Humanities, together with a resultant book, will celebrate his achievements while promoting innovative work in the field.

The collection will focus on the legacy of Old English poetry broadly conceived and will include, for example, studies of particular poems, themes, or verse passages; of the translation or reception history of particular texts; of linguistic features of the poetry and their subsequent influence; of current historical and archaeological studies and how they illuminate the poetry or vice versa; of Old English poetry’s influence on various fields such as music or art; and of how an understanding of Old English prose or medieval Latin literature enriches appreciation of the poetry.

We welcome contributions that address fundamental issues in the Humanities from any meaningful perspective, combining past and present concerns in order to blaze a path toward the future. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. All submissions will be critically reviewed by peers, aiming for the highest possible scholarly level. Being an online journal, the published papers will reach their desired audiences faster, more reliably, and much more easily than traditional print versions, while upholding the same, if not even higher, scholarly standards.

The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2021. For more information see the attached flyer.