Associate Professor of English Katherine H. Terrell presented a paper, titled "From Courtly Love to Court Poetics: Dunbar's Petitions and the Scottish Transformation of Tradition," at the University of Cambridge.
Terrell reexamined William Dunbar's petition poems, often described as "unfortunate" and "tactless," to argue that they're actually one of the sites where Dunbar most actively engages with the literary tradition of courtly love, reworking its timeworn tropes into a uniquely Scottish poetics focused on the intricate exchanges of power and desire in James IV's court.
