Professor Elizabeth Eva Leach publishes new book on medieval desire

Professor Elizabeth Eva Leach, Stipendiary Lecturer in Music at Exeter College, has co-authored a new book, Performing Desire: Knowledge, Self, and Other in Richard de Fournival’s “Bestiaire d’amours”, published by Cornell University Press in June 2025. Written with Jonathan Morton, Associate Professor of French at Tulane University, the book offers a fresh examination of a significant yet underexplored work of medieval literature. 

The Bestiaire d’amours, a mid-thirteenth-century text by Richard de Fournival, blends allegory, philosophy, and courtly love in a unique literary experiment. Leach and Morton delve into the work’s exploration of erotic desire and self-construction, highlighting its interplay between oral and written traditions. Their interdisciplinary approach combines musicology, literary analysis, and manuscript studies to reveal the text’s complexity and its role in the medieval European tradition of philosophical fiction. 

This publication adds to Professor Leach’s extensive scholarship on medieval music and literature, including her previous works such as Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician and Medieval Sex Lives: The Sounds of Courtly Intimacy on the Francophone Borders. 

Performing Desire is now available through major booksellers, including Waterstones and Amazon. For more information on Professor Leach’s work, visit her publications page.