The Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Virginia provides an interdisciplinary and transhistorical network for the study, teaching, and learning of premodern world civilizations, from the first centuries of the Common Era through the fifteenth century. Combining a major in Medieval Studies with extensive graduate and undergraduate course offerings in numerous fields, from Old French and medieval Latin language and paleography to the theology of early Islam, from the writings of the patristic fathers of the Catholic Church to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, from the Europe of Charlemagne to the Japan of Yorimoto, Virginia’s Medieval Studies Program conceives the medieval world from a truly global perspective.
2012-13 looks to be a banner year for the program, beginning with a slate of distinguished lecturers visiting us at various points in the academic year. Jane Burns (UNC-Chapel Hill) will be our guest in October for a lecture and seminar. In mid-November Peter Brown (Princeton) will be on grounds to deliver the Page-Barbour Lectures, and in December we will host a visit by Sarah Beckwith (Duke). Spring visitors will include Noah Guynn (UC-Davis), Jay Rubenstein (Tennessee), and George Edmondson (Dartmouth). The Spring semester will also feature the annual Robert L. Kellogg memorial lecture, delivered by a member of the Virginia medieval faculty.
Another exciting development this year will be an interdisciplinary faculty search, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for a position in the broad area of ”Connective Cultures: Reframing the Post-Classical Mediterranean.” The search will bring several candidates to grounds as part of the College’s Mellon-funded hiring initiative in Comparative Cultures of the Premodern World. Finally, the Graduate Colloquium is organizing its first-ever sponsored session at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo next May. The session will be organized around the topic “Interdisciplinarity Now” and promises to be a fitting culmination to the year.