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Research Guide

Dissertations and Interests

The dissertations listed below are from current members of the Medieval Academy who have either completed their Ph.D.s (from 1995 onwards), or who have approved topics in progress. In the spirit of exchange and as a resource for other graduate students, medieval interests are also included as a means of generating a community amongst present and future colleagues.

If you would like your dissertation listed here, please submit your dissertation title or approved dissertation topic, school affiliation, email address, and medieval interests (optional) to Jennifer Feltman (jfeltman@fsu.edu).

If you have completed your Ph.D., be sure to let the Academy know when you get a job. Your name will appear in the annual listing in the Medieval Academy News of Post-doctoral Hires (MA@MedievalAcademy.org). Deadline for inclusion in the Fall issue is 1 August; for the Winter issue, 1 October.

Approved Dissertations in Progress

Anthony Adams, Univ. of Toronto (anthony.adams@utoronto.ca)
“Great War and Great Wisdom: the Bella Parisiacae urbis and Anglo-Carolingian Literary Relations”
Interests: Old and Middle English, Old Norse, Medievalism, Medieval Latin, Folklore, Carolingians, Scandinavia

Tuija Ainonen, University of Toronto (tainonen@chass.utoronto.ca)
“Studies in the History of ‘Distinctiones’”
Interests: Editing, textual criticism, alphabets, education, intellectual history

Abdullah Alger, University of Manchester (abdullah.alger-2@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk)
"The Rhetoric of the Exeter Book"
Interests: Old English language and literature, reception of Anglo-Saxon literature in the 19th and 20th century, palaeography, Anglo-Latin, editing and textual criticism, medieval rhetoric, J.R.R. Tolkien, book history, source studies, and humanities computing.

Michael Alan Anderson, University of Chicago (maa@uchicago.edu, http://home.uchicago.edu/~maa/10112005.htm)
“Music for St. John the Baptist and St. Anne in the Late Middle Ages"
Interests: Liturgy, symbolism, exegesis, Gregorian semiology, plainchant performance, solmization

Timothy D. Arner, Pennsylvania State University (tda121@psu.edu)
“Trojan Wars: Genre and the Politics of Authorship in Late Medieval and Early Modern England”
Interests: Chaucer, medieval historiography, Renaissance medievalism

Diane Peters Auslander, Graduate Center, CUNY (dauslander@earthlink.net)
“Three Saints in Four Lives: A contextual study of the hagiography of a composite saint”
Interests:  The multiple ethnicities and cultures of the British Isles; the role of conversion and the development of the church; different forms of Christian practice (i.e., Irish and Northumbrian); creation of identity/affiliation; cults of saints and saints’ lives, gender

Jessica Barr, Brown University (Jessica_Barr@brown.edu)
“Revealed in the Spirit: Visionary Knowing and the Medieval Dream Vision Narrative”
Interests: Visionary literature; dream visions and dream theory; women's writing; the influence of Augustine; sign theory and nominalism; medieval English, French and German literature

Catherine Barrett, University of Washington (kitzen@u.washington.edu)
"Cordes and the Intersections of Identity"
Interests: 13th and 14th century architecture and urbanism in Languedoc, notably in towns founded by Count Raymond VII or men associated with his entourage

Renana Bartal, Hebrew University (bartalr@pob.huji.ac.il)
“Vernacular Visions. Three Fourteenth-Century English Apocalypse Manuscripts and their Illuminator”
Interests: Apocalypse imagery, literacy, vernacularism and workshop practices

Charlotte Bauer-Smith, Univ. of Illinois (bauersmi@uiuc.edu)
"Visual Constructions of Corporate Identity and Exempla for the University of Paris, 1200-1500"
Interests: Medieval education, artistic workshop practices, corporations, identity, heraldry and seals.

Judith G. Benz, Yale Univ. (judith.benz@yale.edu)
"Funktion und Repräsentation der Artusfigur in Wolfram von Eschenbachs Parzival und Adolf Muschg's Der Rote Ritter. EIne Geschichte von Parzivâl"
Interests: 13th-century German literature; contemporary Swiss literature; kingship in the Middle Ages

Johan Bergström-Allen, Université de Fribourg (johan@britishlibrary.net)
"The Literary and Bibliographic Activities of the Carmelite Order in medieval England"
Interests: medieval religious culture, guilds and confraternities, Lollard writings, feminist and queer theory, medieval vernacular (English) writing in the British Isles, palaeography

Sandra Bialystok, University of Toronto (sandra@bialy.ca)
"The cuckold, his wife and her lover: A study of infidelity in the Decameron, the Libro de buen amor and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles"
Interests: 14th and 15th century French, Spanish and Italian literature; gender theory; queer theory

Maija Birenbaum, Forham University (Birenbaum@fordham.edu)
"Virtuous Vengeance: Divine Retribution and Christian Identity in Medieval England"
Interests: vernacular theology and lay peity, Jewish-Christian relations

Nancy Bowen, Claremont Graduate Univ. (nebowen@pacbell.net)
"“Chaucer and the Harp: Stringed Musical Instruments in The Canterbury Tales"
Interests: Medieval and Renaissance music, music in literature, Old English poetry, Middle English romance, medieval art, manuscript illumination, and women's studies

Carlee A. Bradbury, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (carlee_bradbury@hotmail.com)
“Imaging and Imagining the Jew in Medieval England”

Cynthia Marie Canejo, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (cane@umail.ucsb.edu)
"Transforming Early Gothic Form: The Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny and Northern Burgundian Architecture"

Julianne Bruneau, University of Notre Dame (jbruneau@nd.edu)
“Perceval in England”
Interests: Interests: Arthurian literature, Old and Middle English literature and language, the cult of Mary Magdalene, Wales, and student-centered teaching methods

Suna Cagaptay-Arikan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (cagaptay@uiuc.edu)
“Visualizing the Cultural Transition in Bithynia: Byzantine-Ottoman ‘Overlap’ Architecture”

Meredith M. Cohen, Columbia Univ. (mmc66@columbia.edu)
"The Sainte-Chapelle of Paris: Image of Authority and Locus of Identity"
Interests: Paris, the Capetians, or even more broadly 12th- and 13th-century rulers, patronage, identity politics, architecture.

Jennifer Davis, Harvard Univ. (jdavis@fas.harvard.edu)
"Imagining and Acting the King: Charlemagne and the Invention of Medieval Rulership"
Interests: Carolingian history, medieval law, medieval Italy, Charlemagne and kingship

Daniel J. DiCenso, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (dd301(NO@SPAM)cam.ac.uk)
“Charlemagne's Song: The 'Romanization' of Chant  and Liturgy during the Carolingian Era”
Interests: Chant, chant (and other musical medievalisms) as used (quoted, borrowed, sampled, etc.) in later musical repertories; Palestrina and the musical changes associated with the Council of  Trent; 17th-century mythological opera; "form" in music of the 18th  and 19th centuries; historiography; gender studies; cultural and literary theory

Pamel Dolan, New York Univ. (peldolan@yahoo.com)
"'A Tearful Protest': Pity, Suffering, and Injustice in Middle English Literature"
Interests: Theology, theodicy, the history of emotion, and 14th- and 15th-century English literature

Lofty Durham, Univ. of Pittsburgh (lld15@pitt.edu)
"Jacques Milet's /Destruction de Troie le Grant/: Reassessing the History of French Theatre in the Late Medieval Period"
Interests: Theatre production practices, Old and Middle French, French paleography, teaching theatre history

Jennifer Edwards, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (jcedward@uiuc.edu)
"Communal Bodies: Organizing Space and Identity through the Cult of the Saints in Medieval Poitiers"

Joshua R. Eyler, University of Connecticut (joshua.eyler@uconn.edu)
"Conditioning the Soul: Spiritual Athleticism in Medieval English Theology and Literature"
Interests: Old and Middle English literature, social history, patristics, biblical exegesis

Annika Farber, Pennsylvania State Univ. (alf237@psu.edu)
"The Medieval artes amatoriae: The Rise of the Didactic in Andreas, Guillaume, Jean, and Gower"
Interests: Classical literature and reception, love literature, history of rhetoric and education, Chaucer and Chaucer reception

Elsa Filosa, Univ. of North Carolina (efilosa@email.unc.edu)
“De mulieribus claris: The narrative female portrait as genre”

Justine Firnhaber-Baker, Harvard University (firnhab@fas.harvard.edu)
More hostili et guerre:  Local War and Royal Authority in Late Medieval Southern France”
Interests: Concepts of authority and power, the crisis of the fourteenth century, gender and cultural history, youth

Megan H. Foster-Campbell, Univ. of Illinois (mhfoster@uiuc.edu)
"'Reading' Pilgrimage: Pilgrims' Badges in Late Medieval Devotional Texts"
Interests: Illuminated manuscripts, pilgrimage, the cult of relics/reliquaries, Christine de Pizan

Ronald Ganze, Univ. of Oregon (rganze@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
"Locating the Medieval Self: Augustinian Strands and Ethical Reading Practices"
Interests: Anglo-Saxon language and literature, patristics, medieval autobiography and saints' lives, medieval theology and philosophy, Chaucer, and ethical reading practices

Alla Gaydukova, Rutgers University (allochka80@yahoo.com)
”Women and Property in Norfolk in the Reign of Edward III”
Interests: 14th-century England, law, family, gender

Bruce Gilchrist, McGill Univ. (bgilch@po-box.mcgill.ca)
"The Body and Metaphysics in Old English Literature"
Interests: Old English literature and philosophy; history of science (esp. neurology); Chaucer

Adina S. Goldstein, The Graduate Center, CUNY (adinasimone@att.net)
"The Tempting of Saints in Latin Narrative: England, France, and the Low Countries, 1100-1230"

Jen Gonyer-Donohue, University of Washington (jengd@u.washington.edu)
“‘Served for hire systers love’: The Tale of Philomela through the Middle Ages”
Interests: Chaucer and 14th century literature, Classical appropriations and mythography, historiography, gender studies, Old French literature, pedagogy

Mica Gould, Purdue University, (mgould@purdue.edu)
"Reading the Reader: Metafictional Romance in Ricardian London"

Emily E. Graham, University of St. Andrews, (eeg@st-andrews.ac.uk)
"Patronage, reform and sanctity: Cardinal Napoleone Orsini and the Spiritual Franciscans"
Interests: Medieval Italy and France, patronage and power relationships, concepts of sanctity, heresy and gender, hagiography, historiography, saints' cults and relics, monasticism, lay piety

Andrey Grunin, Univ. of Avignon (andrey.grunin@yahoo.com)
"The Internal Transformations Through State Conception's Changes in Carolingian Empire from Charlemagne to Charles the Bald: Essay on Systems Approach in History"
Interests: Carolingian Empire, Church and Power in Early Medieval Age, Theory and Quantitative Methods in History, Complexity Theory in the Social Sciences, Systems Self-Representation and Identity

Daniel Gullo, University of Chicago (dkgullo@midway.uchicago.edu)
"Reading, Writing, and Community Formation at 15th century Montserrat"
Interests: Medieval Spanish kingdoms, medieval monasticism and education

Julian Hendrix, King’s College, Cambridge (jh421@cam.ac.uk)
“Liturgy for the dead and the confraternity books of Reichenau and St. Gallen, 800-900”
Interests: Early medieval history, monasticism, manuscript studies

Jason Herman, University of Arizona (jherman1@u.arizona.edu)
“Intention, Utility, and Chaucer's Retraction”
Interests: Medieval literary theory, Chaucer, Arthurian romance

Suzanne Hevelone, Boston College (shevelone@yahoo.com)
“Hagiography and Preaching in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend and Sermons”
Interests: Sermons, hagiography, popular piety, heresy, theology and philosophy, art and iconography, and the cult of the saints

Ann Higgins, University of Massachusetts Amherst (higgins@vgernet.net)
"The Mark of the Hero: Language, Identity and the Middle English Romance"
Interests: Middle English romance; manuscripts; issues relating to translation; classical influences on medieval literature.

Patrick Hornbeck, Oxford University (patrick.hornbeck@chch.ox.ac.uk)
"The Development of Heresy: Doctrinal Change in English ‘Lollard’ Dissent"
Interests: the genesis and evolution of medieval heretical movements, especially the Lollards of fourteenth-, fifteenth-, and sixteenth-century England

Elizabeth Moore Hunt, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia (ebmada@mizzou-edu)
"The Profane Borders of Northern French and Flemish Manuscripts, c. 1270--1305"

Emily J. Hutchinson, University of York (ejh120@york.ac.uk)
"Pour le bien du roy et de son royaulme: Burgundian Propaganda under John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, 1405-1419"
Interests: Fourteenth and fifteenth-century politics; late medieval political thought; medieval communication systems; public opinion and reputation building

Andrea Fitzgerald Jones, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (andrear@ucla.edu)
“Outlaw Masculinity and Eccentric Nationality in Popular English Literature, 1350-1550”
Interests: Gender and popular culture, particularly oral culture, medieval Ireland and England

Curtis R. Jirsa, Cornell University (crj5@cornell.edu)
“Langland and Lyricism: Piers Plowman and its Literary Influences”
Interests: Lyric poetry, late 14th century didactic literature, lay piety, vernacular sermon cycles, late English/French romance, chansons de geste, troubador/trouvère poetry, Germanic linguistics

Anne Johnson, Graduate Center, CUNY (de_musica@yahoo.com)
“On the Nature of Music: The Significance of the Latin Term natura in Medieval Writings on Music”
Interests: Lyric poetry, late 14th century didactic literature, lay piety, vernacular sermon cycles, late English/French romance, chansons de geste, troubador/trouvère poetry, Germanic linguistics

Hope Johnston, University of Cambridge (hwj22@cam.ac.uk)
“A Critical Edition of The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes”
Interests: Christine de Pizan, early Tudors, history of the book, literature and politics, Middle Scots

Wolfram R. Keller, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, (kellerw@staff.uni-marburg.de)
"Allegories of Change: Person and Nation in the Reception of the Troy Story in Late Medieval and Early Modern England"

A. Keith Kelly, Saint Louis University (kellyak@slu.edu)
“The Outlaw vs. the Lawyer: The Role of the Medieval Outlaw Hero as Champion of Justice in the Face of Rising Legal Literacy”
Interests: Old English, Old Norse, mythology, outlaw tales, medieval legal theory, cultural identity, the heroic tradition, medievalism

Kim Klimek, University of New Mexico (klimek@unm.edu)
Eve, Mary, and the Amazons: The Writing of Women within History and Its Relation to the European Intellectual Culture, 950-1150”

Karolyn Kinane, Univ. of Minnesota (kina0008@umn.edu)
"Education and Imitation in Early English Saints' Lives"
Interests: Old and Middle English saints' lives, iconography, medieval education

Christine Kralik, University of Toronto (christine.kralik@utoronto.ca)
“Representing the Macabre: Images of the ‘Three Living and the Three Dead’ in Late Medieval Devotion and Culture”

Ilana Krug, Univ. of Toronto (ikrug@chass.utoronto.ca)
"Royal Prerogative Gone Astray: The Social and Economic Impact of Purveyance on the English Peasantry at the Beginning of the Hundred Years War."
Interests: Fourteenth century English social and economic history; impact of war, taxation, natural disasters and corruption on the peasantry; military technology; complaint and "evils of the times" literature; East Anglian school of manuscript illumination; plague iconography and cult of plague saints.

Aden Kumler, Harvard Univ. (kumler@fas.harvard.edu)
"Visual Translation, Visible Theology: Illuminated Devotional Literature in France And England (1200-1400)"
Interests: Theology, medieval translation theory, medieval exegetical literature, the Master of the Coronation of Charles VI, salvation history; Trinitarian visions, Translatio studii et imperii

Joshua Levy, New York Univ. (JLL222@world.oberlin.edu)
"Sefer Milhamot Hashem, Chapter Eleven: The Earliest Jewish Critique of the New Testament"
Interests: Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish-Christian polemics, crusades, church legislation towards the Jews

Ya-shih Liu, Indiana University, Bloomington(yasliu@indiana.edu)
"A Regnal Genealogy in Trouble: The Trojan Myth as a Traumatic National Historiography in Late Medieval England"


Rebekah Long, Duke University (raw9@duke.edu)
"Apocalypse and Memory in Pearl"
Interests: Apocalypse iconography, scriptural paraphrase, Shakespearean drama and gender; 19th and 20th century forms of medievalism, especially the legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien; visual culture and film theory; ordinary language philosophy.

Cathryn Meyer, Univ. of Texas at Austin (cmeyer@mail.utexas.edu)
“Producing the Middle English Corpus: Confession and Medieval Bodies.”
Interests: 14th and 15th century Middle English literature, medieval theology and law, Latin and vernacular confessional manuals, gender and body theory, and subjectivity

Tara Bookataub Montague, Univ. of Oregon (tbookata@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
"Narrating Battle in the Early Medieval Germanic Tradition"

Lesley Morden, Simon Fraser University (lamorden@sfu.ca)
"How much damage did the Vikings do? An analysis of the material impact of raids by Northmen on Northern France in the ninth century" (supervisor: Paul E. Dutton)

Hari Nair, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (gn_hari_1999@yahoo.com)
”Against empire: The discourse of Natural Law and the autonomy of the American Indians”

Derek Neal, McGill University (derekneal@canada.com)
"Masculinity in Late Medieval England: Self, Body, and Society, 1350-1530"
Interests: Gender and psycholinguistic theory in historical analysis; late medieval social and demographic history; English legal history; medieval religious culture; history of sexuality; psychoanalytic theory; Middle English romance

Jonathan M. Newman, University of Toronto, (jon.newman@utoronto.ca)
"Counsel of Satire, Satire of Counsel: Representing Social Relations in Later Medieval Literature"
Interests:  Satirical literature of the Middle Ages; Middle English, Medieval Latin, Old Occitan, and Old French; literary pragmatics; applied linguistics and literary criticism; medieval literary pedagogy

Juliet O'Brien, Princeton University (obrien@princeton.edu)
“Trobar Cor: Erotics and Poetics in the Romance of Flamenca”
Interests: 12th-13th century Old French and Occitan lyric poetry and romance

Dana M. Oswald, Ohio State Univ. (oswald.29@osu.edu)
"Indecent Bodies: Gender and the Monstrous in Medieval Literature"

Mark O’Tool, Univ. of California at Santa Barbara (motool@umail.ucsb.edu)
"Caring for the Blind in Medieval Paris: Life at the Quinze-Vingts, 1250-1500."
Interests: disability, medieval hospitals, poverty and charity, lay spirituality, urban development (esp. Paris), royal patronage, medieval drama, communal identity.

Paul J. Patterson, University of Notre Dame, (patterson.30@nd.edu)
"A Mirror to Devout People: An Edition with Commentary"
Interests: Old and Middle English, book history, paleography, textual criticism, and lay religious literary practices

Kimm Perkins, Univ. of Glasgow (kimm5466@yahoo.com)
“Religious Women and Their Communities in Medieval Scotland, 1100-1600”

Genevive Pigeon, UniversitŽ du QuŽbec ˆ MontrŽal, DŽpartement des Sciences religieuses, "Les enjeux sociaux et politiques de la rŽcupŽration des motifs arthuriens par Henri II Plantagent"
Interests: politics, religion, literature, oral traditions, written novels, England, monarchy, reception threory (Jauss), XIIth century

Dana Polanichka, University of California, Los Angeles (danamp@ucla.edu)
“Sacred Space in Carolingian Europe”
Interests: sacred space, liturgical performance, religious aesthetics and devotion, saints' cults and relics, iconography, historiography

Kevin R Poole, Ohio State University (poole.78@osu.edu)
"Visualizing the Apocalypse: Image and Narration in the Morgan Beatus Comentario al Apocalipsis, ms. 644, from 926 AD." (supervisor: Vicente Cantarino)
Interests: religious and monastic literature and culture, the medieval short story, Christian-Muslim relations in Medieval Spain, visual imagery of the Middle Ages, and historical linguistics of the Romance languages

Camarin M. Porter, University of Wisconsin at Madison (cmporter@wisc.edu)
"De subiecto theologiae: Gerardus Odonis, Peter Auriol, and The Nature of Theological Knowledge and Theological Authority in the Early Fourteenth-Century."
Interests:  Fourteenth-century theology, philosophy, and ethics, specifically related to the love of God, love of self, and the object of the acts of knowing and loving; the Franciscan Order; voluntary poverty during the late middle ages.

Jennifer A. Price, Univ. of Washington (japrice@u.washington.edu)
“Crusaders and their Vows, 1095-1350”

Christopher Roman, University of Alabama (christopher.roman@ua.edu)
"The Spiritual Family: Domestic Metaphors of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe"
Interests: mysticism, women writers, gender studies

Mary Rambaran-Olm, University of Glasgow (maryrr@btinternet.com)
“A Critical Edition of the Exeter Book's Decent into Hell”
Interests: Old English prose and poetry, Middle English, palaeography, humanities computing, scriptural exegesis, mediaeval military history, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S.Lewis

Anna Russakoff, New York Univ. (adr207@nyu.edu)
“Imaging the Miraculous: Les Miracles de Notre-Dame, Paris BnF n.acq.fr. 24541”
Interests: illuminated manuscripts (especially French, 13th and 14th centuries), iconography, image-text relationships, royal patronage, female patronage

Mike Ryan, University of Minnesota (ryan0223@umn.edu)
"That the Truth May Be Known: Prophesy & Society in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon"
Interests: Medieval Iberian social & cultural History

Johanna G. Seasonwein, Columbia Univ.
"The Nursing Queen: Virgo Lactans Sculptures in Late Medieval France"

John T. Sebastian, Cornell Univ. (jts29@cornell.edu)
“A Religion of Their Own: Pedagogy, Piety, and Performance in Late- Medieval East Anglia”
Interests: Middle English literature (especially religious prose and drama), Franciscan spirituality, mysticism, manuscript reception and transmission, medieval music

Misty Schieberle, University of Notre Dame (mschiebe@nd.edu)
"Feminized Counsel: Representations of Women and Advice to Princes in Late Medieval England"

Catherine Shepherd, Univ. of Bristol (cs0024@bristol.ac.uk)
“The precincts of tenth century English monastic houses influenced by St. Oswald”

Eric Shuler, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame(eshuler@nd.edu)
"Almsgiving and the Formation of Christian Societies, A.D. 700-1025."
Interests: intersections of religious, social and cultural history in the early Middle Ages, almsgiving, and Christianization.

Holly R. Silvers, Indiana University (hsilvers@indiana.edu)
"The Poitevin Low Road: Profanity in the Ecclesiastical Sculpture of Romanesque Saintonge."
Interests: Medieval sexuality and its iconography, Romanesque sculpture and architecture of the Saintonge, pilgrimage culture, visual syntax, historiography.

Keith Sisson, University Of Memphis (keithsisson@hotmail.com)
“De Principato Auctoritatis Papalis: Giles of Rome's Doctrine of Papal Supremacy”
Interests: Church and state relationships, political theory and practice, English history, ecclesiology, cultural and intellectual history, and Scholasticism.

Jennifer Speed, Fordham Univ. (jmspeed@earthlink.net)
"The Politics of Emotion in Thirteenth-Century Iberia"
Interests: Iberia, especially the Crown of Aragon; legal history; vernacular chronicles

Kathryn Kelsey Staples, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (kelseykj@umn.edu)
“Daughters of London: Inheritance Practice in the Late Middle Ages”

Karl Steel, Columbia University (kts15@columbia.edu)
"Eating and Not Eating Meat in the Middle Ages."
Interests: Middle English and Old and Middle French Literature, Scriptural Exegesis, Medieval Natural History, History of Anti-Semitism.

Jill Stevenson, Graduate Center, CUNY (jc_stevenson@hotmail.com)
“Performance and Visual Piety in Medieval York”
Interests: Performance; lay devotion; material and visual culture

Charles A. Stewart, Indiana University (stewartc@indiana.edu)
"Domes of Heaven: The Domed Basilicas of Cyprus"
Interests:Byzantine architecture and decoration, Islamic-byzantine relations, Liturgical symbolism, Iconoclasm, Byzantine historiography

Myra Struckmeyer, Univ. of North Carolina (struckme@email.unc.edu)
"The Female Hospitallers in the High Middle Ages"
Interests: Military orders, crusades, monasticism, history of women, and gender studies

Larry Swain, University of Illinois-Chicago (theswain@operamail.com)
“Aelfric of Eynsham’s Letter to Sigeweard: An Edition, Translation, and Commentary”
Interests: Old English, Anglo-Latin, Old Norse, and Old Irish languages and literatures, biblical commentary and interpretation in early medieval period, codicology and palaeography

Margaret Swezey, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (mfswezey@email.unc.edu)
"The Making of Marriage in Middle English Romances"

Paola Tartakoff, Columbia University (pyt2001@columbia.edu)
"Jewish Conversion in the Crown of Aragon, 1291-1391"
Interests: medieval Spain, Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish and Christian mysticism and piety, cultural history, medieval paleography, Mediterranean history

Anke Timmermann, Cambridge University (anke@gatesscholar.org)
“The Verses upon the Elixir: a Middle English Alchemical Poem”
Interests: history of alchemy, related history of medicine; medieval methods of annotation; production, circulation and reception of scientific writings

Susan Valentine, New York University (valentine@nyu.edu)
“’Because she hath loved much’: Mary Magdalene and Religious Reform, 1000-1215”
Interests: Gender and sexuality, sanctity and gender, hagiography,  monasticism, the culture of devotion

James Wade, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (jpw49@cam.ac.uk)
“Fairies in Medieval Romance”
Interests: Medieval France and England; romance; cultural and literary theory; historiography; early printed romances; English and Scottish ballads; Shakespeare; Spenser; 19th and 20th century medievalism

Alison Tara Walker, UCLA
"Politics and Orthodoxy in the Reign of Henry V"
Interests: The Lancastrians, 15th Century, Middle English, Paleography

Siovahn Walker, Stanford University
"Five 'Cistercian' De anima in an Age of Cures"
Interests: psychology, philosophy, philosophies of history, 12th century studies, arts of preaching and rhetoric, techniques in historiographical writing, Middle English dialects

Renee Ward, Univ. of Alberta (rmward@ualberta.ca)
“Violence, Identity and Change: The Social Function of Shape Shifting Narratives”
Interests: shape-shifting/ers, medieval and modern fantasy literature, medievalisms, medieval women, manuscript studies

Joshua A. Westgard, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (westgard@email.unc.edu)
"The Dissemination and Reception of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of the Venerable Bede in Germany, c. 731-1500"
Interests: Anglo-Saxon & Anglo-Norman England, manuscript studies, medieval historical writing

Rebecca A. Wilcox, University of Texas at Austin (rwilcox@mail.utexas.edu)
“Cultures of Conquest: Romancing the East in Medieval England and France”

Valerie M. Wilhite, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, (vwilhite@uiuc.edu)
"The Transformative Power of Words: The Role of Writing in the Negation of the Self in Mysticism and Finâ Amor" Interests: Old French, Occitan, Spanish, Italian courtly and mystical literatures; medieval and modern literary and linguistic theories

Edna Ruth Yahil, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (eyahil@stanfordalumni.org)
"Outside the Walls of Paris: Law, Society, and Culture in France, 1400-1550"
Interests: Medieval and Early Modern French history; legal history; guilds and labor; cultural and social history

 

Completed Dissertations: 1995-present

Frances A. Altvater, Boston University (altvater@bu.edu)
"In Fonte Renatus. The Iconography and Context of Twelfth-Century baptismal Fonts in England" Ph.D. received April, 2003

Jane Beal, Univ. of California (jbeal@ucdavis.edu).
"John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon: Authority and Vernacular Translation in Late-Medieval England"
Interests: Middle English prose and poetry, the Pearl-Poet, the Bible in the Middle Ages Ph.D. received June 2002

Thomas R. Besch, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (besch.thomas@gmail.com)
”La masculinité dans la Chanson de Roland: une étude de l'amitie en tant que genre sexue”
Ph.D. received November, 2005

Carrie E. Benes, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (benes@ncf.edu)
"Roman Foundations: Constructing Identity in Late Medieval Italy." Ph.D. received 2004.

Barbara Bordalejo, New York University (bb268@nyu.edu)
"The Phylogeny of the Order in the Canterbury Tales" Ph.D. received May 2003

Barbara Bordalejo, De Montfort University (bbordalejo@dmu.ac.uk)
"The Manuscript Source of Caxton's Second Edition of the Canterbury Tales and Its Place in the Textual Tradition of the Tales" Ph.D. received July 2003

Jennifer Borland, Stanford University (jborland@stanford.edu)
"Unstable Women: Transgression and Corporeal Experience in Twelfth-Century Visual Culture" PhD. received 2006

Brian R. Carniello, University of California, Santa Barbara (bcarniel@utk.edu)
“The Notaries of Bologna: Family, Profession and Popular Politics in a Thirteenth-Century Italian City-State.” Ph.D. received March 2005.
Interests: Medieval Italy, urban society, notaries, family, popular politics, mendicant rivalry and heresy

Marie Therese Champagne, Louisiana State University (mchampagne@STU.EDU)
The Relationship between the Papacy and the Jews in Twelfth-Century Rome: Papal Attitudes toward Biblical Judaism and Contemporary European Jewry.” Ph.D. received 2005.

David Defries, Ohio State Univ. (djdefries@yahoo.com)
“Constructing the Past in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Hagiography at Saint-Winnoc.” Ph.D. received 2004

Susan J. Dudash, Univ. of Pittsburgh (sdudash@cc.usu.edu)
"Giving Voice to the People: Rhetoric, History, and Literary Representations of Social Conflict in the Late Middle Ages,"
Ph.D. received April 2003

Liam Felsen, Univ. of Oregon (lfelsen@darkwing.uorgeon.edu)
"'Disputatio puerorum': Critical Edition and Analysis"
Interests: Medieval Latin language and literature, Anglo-Saxon language and literature, textual editing, medieval education, dialogue literature, medieval theories of time, redemption theory, theology and literature

Christina M. Fitzgerald, University of California, Los Angeles (christina.fitzgerald@utoledo.edu)
“The Mystery of Men: Performing Masculinity in the Medieval Drama Cycles of York and Chester” Ph.D. received September 2002.
Interests: Middle English literature, drama, hagiography, romance, gender, manuscripts, transmission and reception, lay literacy, mercantile culture

Constantina Scourtis Gaddis, University of California, Los Angeles
"The Failure of Reconciliation: The Byzantine Experience at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1438-39)." PhD received December 2004
Interests: Byzantine religious, political, intellectual and cultural history; Byzantium and Latin Europe; the Crusades.

Ronald J. Ganze, University of Oregon (Ronald.Ganze@Valpo.edu)
“Conceptions of the Self in Augustine, Alfred, and Anglo-Saxon England”
Ph.D. received December, 2004

Shannon Gayk, Univ. of Notre Dame (sgayk@indiana.edu)
““’Sensible Signes’: Mediating Images in Late Medieval Literature.” Ph.D. received 2005.

Elina Gertsman, Boston University (glazastik@yahoo.com)
"Debeo Saltare: Theology, Performance and Reception of the Late Medieval Dance of Death."
Interests: fifteenth-century northern painting, theology, mysticism, concept of medieval death

Sharon K. Goetz, Univ. of California-Berkeley
"Uses of Portable Histories in the 13th and 14th Centuries" Ph.D. received December 2006.
Interests: Old and Middle English literature, historiography, textual criticism in electronic and codicological contexts

John D. Hosler, Univ. of Delaware (dysco7@hotmail.com)
“The Warfare of Henry II, 1149-1189.” Ph.D. received 2005.

Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Boston College (djoslynsiem@cdsp.edu)
”The Maccabean Martyrs in Medieval Christianity and Judaism.” Ph.D. received 2005.
Interests: Medieval Jewish-Christian relations, hagiography, supersessionism

Jessica Knauss, Brown University, Dept. of Hispanic Studies
"Alfonsine Legislation and the Cantigas de Santa Maria" Ph.D. received May 2007.
Interests: Alfonso X, el Sabio (1221-1284), Galician-Portuguese lyric, the roots of Castilian epic, and intercultural relations based on religious or geographical difference

Johanna Kramer, Cornell University (jik4@cornell.edu)
“The Poetics of Materiality in Anglo-Saxon England: Religion and Material Reality in the Aecerbot Charm, Ascension Homilies, and Christ I.” Ph.D. received 2006.

Yvette Kisor, Faculty Fellow, University of California-Davis (ylkisor@ucdavis.edu)
"The Inner Beowulf: Theories of Structure and Composition of the Poem and their Implications for Modern Readers" Ph.D. received September 2001

Peter L. Larson, Kenyon College (visiting); (larsonp@kenyon.edu)
"Conflict and Compromise in the Late Medieval Countryside: Lords and Peasants in Durham, 1349-1430" (supervised by James Masschaele). PhD awarded, Rutgers University, May 2004.
Interests: 13th-17th century England, rural society, social and legal history, the Black Death, revolts and protest, medieval frontiers, and socio-cultural interactions

Merav Mack, Cambridge University (msmack@mscc.huji.ac.il)
"The Merchant of Genoa. The Crusades, the Genoese, and the Latin East, 1187-1220s" Ph.D. received June 2003

Jennifer Marshall, Royal Holloway, Univ. of London (jmarshall1@dmu.ac.uk)
"The Manuscript Tradition of Brunetto Latini's Li Livres dou Tresor and its Italian versions" Ph.D. received January 2002

Carl Grey Martin, Tufts University (carlgmartin@gmail.com)
“’I Wolde No Were’: Violence and Ideology in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
Ph.D. received May, 2005

Wendy Matlock, Ohio State (matlock.5@osu.edu)
"Irreconcilable Differences: Law, Gender, and Judgment in Middle English Debate Poetry"
Interests: Middle English language, literature, and culture Ph.D. received August 2003

Janice Racine Norris, Binghamton University (hereswith@earthlink.net)
"Anglo-Saxon Religious Women Who Went to the Continent: A Group Study"
Interests: medieval religious women in England and on the Continent, Kinship Groups and Behaviors, and Convent Life including various Rules for Nuns and Episcopal Directives for Nuns' Houses. Ph.D. received May 2003

Nicholas Paul, Cambridge University (nlp23@cam.ac.uk)
"Crusade and family memory before 1225." Ph.D. received 2005

Janine Larmon Peterson, Indiana University, Bloomington (jpeterson@slc.edu))
"Contested Sanctity: Disputed Saints, Inquisitors, and Communal Identity in Northern Italy, 1250-1400”
Ph.D. received 2006.

Donna M. Reimer-Becker, Cardinal Stritch University (donna.reimer-becker@cuw.edu))
“Queen Elizabeth I: A Woman Transcending Her Gender.”
Ph.D. received 2005.

Nhora Lucia Serrano, University of Wisconsin-Madison (nserrano@csulb.edu)
"The Role of the Female Guide in Medieval Portraits of Monarchy: A Study of Medieval Historiography, translatio studii et imperii and illuminations in Alfonso X, el Sabio's Cantigas de Santa Maria and Christine de Pizan's Epistre d' Othea." Ph.D. received May, 2006.
Interests: Medieval and early modern Spanish, French, and Italian literatures, illuminated manuscripts, medieval visual culture, Medieval and Renaissance female figures, notions of Kingship and Queenship, historiography,mythography and the influence of political treatises in literature.

Julie Towell, Wayne State University (julie.towell@wayne.edu)
"The 'Rise and Progress' of Anglo-Saxonism and English National iIdentity: Old English Literature in the Nineteenth Century" Ph.D. received May 2003

Renee R. Trilling, Univ. of Notre Dame (trilling.1@nd.edu)
"Poetic Memory: History and Aesthetics in Early Medieval England"
Interests: Old and Middle English Literature, theories of historiography, linguistics and philology, feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Frankfurt School Marxism

Amy N. Vines, Brown University, (amy.vines@gmail.com)
"A Worldly Occupacioun: ENglish Women's Readership and Patronage of Medieval Secular Literature, 1350-1500"



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