Biography
Biography
Britton Elliott Brooks was raised on the shore, that liminal space between worlds, on the island of Oahu. His feet have taken him to the hills of Wales, the time-gorged stones of Oxford, and most recently to the endless mountains of Japan. He seeks to unite the pursuit of the scholar with a heart that is most at home when wandering beneath the leaves of oak, ash, koa, and palm, or when diving beneath the waves to hear the chatter of fish and be freed from the tyranny of gravity.
Prof. Brooks attained his DPhil (PhD) in Medieval English Literature at the University of Oxford. His research centres on early medieval English literature (both Old English and Anglo-Latin) and the environmental humanities, with increasing focus on the blue humanities. His publications include his 2019 monograph Restoring Creation: The Natural World in the Anglo-Saxon Saints' Lives of Cuthbert and Guthlac, the edited collection Global Perspectives on Early Medieval England, as well as a number of articles, including several stemming from his recently completed Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) grant project Early Medieval Soundscapes. These include ‘The Sound-World of Early Medieval England: A Case Study of the Exeter Book Storm Riddle’, a book chapter in Ideas of the World in Early Medieval England, and most recently, ‘Sonic Journeys on the Open Sea: Testing the Faithful in Old English and Anglo-Latin Literature’, in the journal The Review of English Studies. He has just begun a five-year research project, also supported by a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), titled Knowing Oceans: The Early Medieval English North Sea, which will investigate human interaction with the North Sea in the British Archipelago throughout the early Medieval period (c. 500–1200).
Contact: brooks@flc.kyushu-u.ac.jp