Department of History 1126 East 59th Street The University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637 Office: Harper East 686 Telephone office (773) 702-4326 Fax department (773) 702-7550 Email: On leave 2008-2009

Research and Teaching Specialties

History of Christianity; Medieval European Cultural, Religious and Intellectual History; Liturgy and Prayer; Devotion to the Virgin Mary and Christ; Scriptural Exegesis and Hermeneutics; Warfare; Travel; History of Emotion; Creativity and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Weblog: Fencing Bear at Prayer

History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person. Co-edited with Bruce Holsinger. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

"Praying by Numbers." Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd. series, volume 4 (2007): 195-250.

"'Taste and See That the Lord is Sweet' (Ps. 33:9): The Flavor of God in the Monastic West." The Journal of Religion 86.2 (April 2006): 169-204.

"The Virgin in the Garden, or Why Flowers Make Better Prayers." Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 4 (Spring 2004): 1-23.

From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

• Awarded the 2006 John Nicholas Brown Prize by the Medieval Academy of America for "a first book or monograph on a medieval subject judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality."


• Awarded the Journal of the History of Ideas Morris D. Forkosch Prize for "the best book in intellectual history published in 2002."


• A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title of the Year.


• Reviews by Sarah Hamilton, History: Journal of the Historical Association 92.1 (January 2007): 108-9; Sarah Jane Boss, American Historical Review 111.5 (December 2006): 1576-77; Penny J. Cole, Theological Studies 67.4 (December 2006): 886-88; Kevin Madigan, History of Religions 45.3 (February 2006): 270; Marsha L. Dutton, The Catholic Historical Review 92.1 (January 2006): 107-110; Karl Morrison, "Constructing Empathy," Journal of Religion 84 (April 2004): 264-69; M.B. Pranger, "On Devotional Historiography," Dutch Review of Church History 84 (2004); Wanda Zemler-Cizewski, Speculum 79.4 (October 2004): 1071-72; Thomas F.X. Noble, Theological Studies 65.4 (December 2004): 861-64; Arthur G. Holder, Church History 73.1 (March 2004): 197-199; Janice Pinder, The Medieval Review, 04.06.11; Henrietta Leyser, European Review of History--Revue européenne d'Histoire 11.3 (Autumn 2004): 429-30; and Benedicta Ward, Journal of Theological Studies 54.2 (October 2003): 817-18.

"'Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?': The Song of Songs as the Historia for the Office of the Assumption." Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998): 55-122.

"Mimetic Devotion, Marian Exegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs." Viator 27 (1996): 86-116.

Current Research

My current project is a study of the cognitive and experiential making of prayer in the monastic culture of the medieval West, with special emphasis on the practices that developed from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries for prayer to the Trinity and the Virgin Mother of God.  These practices included the recitation of a Little Office of the Virgin modeled on the monastic liturgy of the Hours and the meditation on the Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin as mediated through the practice of the rosary.  My immediate purpose is to find a way to describe monastic and Marian prayer as a practical art, that is, as a practice that takes skill and uses particular tools.  My ultimate goal in this project is to develop an understanding of the meaning and importance of the aesthetics of worship, that is, of worship as itself a creative act.

Undergraduate Europe in the Early Middle Ages Religion and Society in the Medieval West Medieval Monasticism Medieval Travelers Knights and Samurai War in the Middle Ages History of European Civilization: I. Early Middle Ages to Enlightenment II. Enlightenment to Present Day Tolkien: Medieval and Modern Graduate Sacrament and Liturgy in the Medieval West Praying by the Book Religious Thought in the Twelfth Century Manuscripts and Medieval Culture The Conversion of Europe Monasticism Intellectuals in the Twelfth Century Problems in Medieval History I Problems in Medieval History II The Meaning of History Passion of Christ Spiritual Exercises: History and Practice

Undergraduate and Graduate Programs in Medieval Studies
Graduate Studies in Medieval History
Medieval Studies Workshop
Jenny Adams, "Positively Medieval", The University of Chicago Magazine, December 1999.

Regenstein Library
Internet History Sourcebooks
ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies

Ask Fred
Fencing.net
U.S. Fencing
Illinois Division of the USFA

My USFA ranking: D07 Foil
 

JP Brown's Serious Lego
George Hardy's Ankerstein Builders' Page