2025-05-14
- Xin Wen (文欣) is an historian of medieval China and Inner Asia (PhD Harvard University) and an associate professor in the Departments of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University. His first book, the prizewinning The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road (Princeton University Press, 2023), re-...
2025-05-06 - Our medieval acting troupe of Illinois students, faculty, staff, and alumni will be participate in an epic production of the Corpus Christi Cycle...
2025-05-04 - We are delighted that Kalani Craig will join us as a faculty affiliate in Medieval Studies in August. Professor Craig's research and teaching specialties converge at the intersection of digital methodologies and medieval history. She uses digital methods like text mining, spatial history, and network analysis to explore conflict in medieval European history and trains students...
2024-12-17 - The newest issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies *Volume 100, Number 1* (January 2025), marks the Medieval Academy of America's Centennial with a spotlight on "Medieval Studies and Its Institutions." The lead article is a collaboration among three scholars representing the Program in Medieval Studies at Illinois: Carol Symes (History), D. Fairchild Ruggles (Islamic Art...
2024-10-15 - This fall, we are thrilled to have added thirteen new faculty to the Program in Medieval Studies: scholars from the fields of Anthropology, Art History, Classics, English, History, Library and Information...
2024-09-18 - Materia Medica and the Globalization of Knowledge in Early Medieval England Early Medieval England boasts the earliest collection of vernacular medical texts north of the Alps. Many are translations of classical materials; others are native Old English “folk” medicine, charms, prognostics, and prayers. This lecture explores the hybrid medical discourse produced by the juxtaposition of...
2024-04-12 - The Program in Medieval Studies is delighted to congratulate Prof. Hermann von Hesse, whose recent fellowship award will support the research and writing on his book project: Love of Stone Houses: Urban Merchants, Ancestral Spaces and Sacred Objects on Africa’s Gold Coast, 1700-1890.
2024-04-10 - Prof. Padraic Rohan -- Transforming Empire: The Genoese from the Crusades to Columbus
2024-04-05 - Medieval Black London: The Before Lives of the Archive of Transatlantic Slavery
2024-03-13 - Prof. Gian Piero Persiani: Readers, Recipients, and Fans of Poetry in Tenth-Century, Courtly Japan
2023-10-31 - On August 15, 2023, Brepols released a new book: Sources of Knowledge in Old English and Anglo-Latin Literature: Studies in Honor of Charles D. Wright. For 32 years, Professor Charlie Wright taught in the English department at the University of Illinois, serving as Associate Head of English from 1995 to 1997 and the Director of Medieval Studies from 2011 to 2015. His wide-ranging...
2023-04-21 - On April 21, 2023, Medieval Studies partnered with the Spurlock Museum for a film screening and falconry demonstration, and attendees flocked to the event! Local falconry enthusiasts joined the Medieval Studies community for a screening of the 2020 documentary film Overland, as well as a talkback with the film's director, Revere...
2023-01-19 - The Program in Medieval Studies is excited to partner with the Program in Jewish Culture & Society and the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory to welcome Professor Geraldine Heng (University of Texas at Austin) to the University of Illinois on January 26. Professor Heng will deliver the Krouse Family Visiting Scholar in Judaism and Western Culture Fund lecture, entitled "Race Before...
2022-10-26 - "The Saint and the Emir: Christian-Muslim Encounters in Early Medieval Italy" Within the incredibly diverse political, cultural, and linguistic landscape of early medieval southern Italy, Muslims lived and worked alongside Christians (both Latin and Greek) and Jews. While most of the medieval texts that record the interactions between these various religious communities...
2022-10-04 - This summer I conducted archaeological excavations at the Carson site near Clarksdale, Mississippi. This is a mound center used and occupied by Mississippian peoples beginning around the year A.D. 1000 until the time of European contact. My research explores the connections between this site in Mississippi and the site of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis. Preliminary work (...