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Cat Watts specialises in medieval French literature and contemporary anglophone pop culture. She is especially interested in literatures outside the printed book, queer and postcolonial theory, theories of space and time, and Internet culture.

Her current project, Medieval French Fandom, investigates modern fandom practices of affect and community alongside fifteenth-century private collections. This comparison will illuminate how and why medieval French-speakers commissioned, interacted with, and preserved their narrative worlds. 

Her fields of interest include:

  • French Arthurian verse and prose romance and pastiche
  • French devotional literature, art, and objects
  • The history of anglophone fandom
  • Fandom literature
  • The history of American comics
  • Literary and visual art in videogames
  • Queer studies
  • Theories of space and time, especially in relation to literary spaces and to globalisation
  • Theories of authorship
  • Manuscript ontology and materiality

Teaching

Cat Watts welcomes students for supervision on any subjects related to her research interests. She is also an experienced outreach teacher.

Conference papers

'Works in Progress: An Unfinished Collection, The Vulgate Cycle, and Marvel Comics', ICLS British and Irish Branch Conference, online, April 2025 [Early Career Prize Plenary]

‘Marvel and Merveille: Rereading Cyclic Closures in the Arthurian Expanded Universe’, Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern Studies Seminars, University College London, UK, May 2023 [by invitation]

‘Our Lady’s Tumbl(e)r: Rereading Medieval Miracle Texts through Fandom’, French Graduate Research Seminar, University of Cambridge, UK, October 2022 [by invitation]

‘Medieval Expanded Universes: Devotion, Comic Books, and Fandom’, Cambridge Medieval Literatures and Cultures Seminar, University of Cambridge, UK, June 2022 [by invitation]

‘A seat at the table: Understanding Hegemonic Systemics Through the Round Table’, Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, American University of Paris, France, January 2022.

‘Make Mine Medieval: A Genealogy of Arthurian Romance and American Comics’, Joint International Bande-Dessinée Society and International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, June 2021

‘Rereading Lancelot Against Whiteness’, International Courtly Literature Society Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, April 2021

‘Medievalisms, Magic, and Macula: Encountering the medieval and the modern in Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale: Innocence’, with Liam McLeod, The Middle Ages in Modern Games Conference, Twitter, July 2020

‘Griefers and Gatekeepers: Reevaluating Realtime Gaming in the 21st Century’. Tacit Engagement in the Digital Age Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, June 2019.

‘De Civitate Mentis: The Singular-Plural Community of the Medieval Religious Mind’. Early Medieval, Medieval, Reformation, Early Modern (EMREM) Annual Symposium, University of Birmingham, UK, May 2019.

‘No Holding Back: Stasis and Cycle in La Queste del Saint Graal’. Cambridge French Graduate Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, April 2019.

‘Modelling Asexuality in Arthurian Literary Space’. Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS) Conference, University of Reading, UK, March 2019.

Publications

Cat Watts is currently finalising her first book project, Miraculous Hurt/Comfort in Medieval Fanfiction and Modern Devotion, to be published in the Impact series at ARC Humanities Press.

Watts, Cat, ‘La Mort le Roi Artu’, The Literary Encyclopedia, 1.5.2.01 (2025) <https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41137>;

Watts, Cat, ‘Alice Hazard, The Face and Faciality in Medieval French Literature, 1170-1390’, Medium Aevum, 91.1 (2022), pp. 152-54 [review]

Watts, Cat, ‘Artus de Bretagne by Christine Ferlampin-Acher (review)’, French Studies 76(3) (2022) pp.454-5 [review]

Watts, Cat, ‘The Abbaye du Saint Esprit: Spiritual Instruction for Laywomen, 1250-1500’, Medium Aevum 90(2) (2021) pp.360-1 [review]

McLeod, Liam & Watts, Cat, ‘Medievalisms, Magic, and Macula: Encountering the medieval and the modern in Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale: Innocence’, in The Medieval in Modern Games: Conference Proceedings Vol. 1, ed. Robert Houghton (2020) https://issuu.com/theuniversityofwinchester/docs/mamg20_proceedings/5 [31/10/21]

Other activities and roles

  • 2022-2023: Convenor of the French Graduate Conference
  • 2021-2022: Convenor of the Cambridge Medieval Literature and Cultures Seminar (“CamMedSem”)
  • 2021-2022: Convenor of the French Graduate Research Seminar (FGRS)

Personal website

Find me on Instagram at @gauvain4president to follow my work!

For professional enquiries, please email me.