A forum for the presentation and discussion of scholarly papers in medieval studies, with emphasis on comparative and interdisciplinary approaches. Working closely with Harvard’s Committee on Medieval Studies and in conjunction with the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the seminar fosters dialogue between established medievalists, both local and visitors, and graduate students.

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming seminars.

Past Events 2012 - 13

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Panel Discussion: A Global Middle Ages?
Conference: Preaching the Saints - Sermons, Art, and Music in the Later Middle Ages
Conference: Preaching the Saints - Sermons, Art, and Music in the Later Middle Ages
"Medieval Studies after Harvard"
Hildegard Keller, Indiana University
"Of Mice, Men, and Metaphors: Figurative Speech about Time"
Marc Epstein, Vassar College
“Artist Anonymous, Patron Unknown: Iconography and Authorial Intention in the Medieval Haggadah”
On Islamic books
De ratione temporum; or, Why Should We Be "Medieval"?
Benjamin Braude, Boston College
"A Book and a Chapel: Giovanni Nanni's Anthology of Ancient Frauds and Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling Frescoes"
Paul Crossley, Courtauld Institute
"The Myth of the Cathedral"

Past Events 2011 - 12

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Theresa Coletti, University of Maryland
"Reading the Bible in South Africa through the Prism of Medieval English Drama"
Emily Rose, Baruch College, City University of New York
"Hugh of Lincoln and the Medieval Blood Libel"
Daniela Mueller, University of Nijmegen
"Female Leadership from the Twelfth Century to the Fifteenth Century: From Hildegard of Bingen to Jeanne d’Arc
Peter Fergusson, Wellesley College
“Canterbury Cathedral Priory and its Drawn Image in the Eadwine Psalter c. 1160 “
Lawrence Nees, University of Delaware
"The Eagle Capitals in the Dome of the Rock"
David Aberbach, McGill University
“Islam on Medieval Poetry as Part of the Emergence of European National Identities”
Andrea Worm, Augsburg University
"’Credo in deum:’ Diagramatic Representations of the Creed in the Late Middle Ages”
Didier Méhu, Université Laval
"Visualizing the Invisible: The Empty Frame of the Romanesque Altar"
Marjorie Curry Woods, Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies
“Weeping for Dido: Teaching Rhetoric, Gender, and Emotion”
Francis Michael Ludlow, Trinity College Dublin
"Medieval Irish Annals as Sources for the Environmental History and Historical Climatology of the North Atlantic, c.430-1650 AD"
Michael Davis, Mount Holyoke College
"From Stylus to SketchUp: Technologies of Representation of Medieval Architecture"
Susan Harvey, Brown University
"Eve in Syriac Tradition"
Christopher Young, Pembroke College
“Kaiserchronik: Literature and History in the German Middle Ages”
Celia M. Chazelle, The College of New Jersey
"Bede and his Accusers"
Michele Trizio, Dumbarton Oaks Fellow
“Aristotle's Ethics in the West and the Byzantine Commentary Tradition”
Sim Innes, Harvard University
“Fionn mac Cumhaill as Virtuous Pagan”

Past Events 2010 - 11

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Erik Kwakkel, Universiteit Leiden
“Age of Innovation: The Manuscript Book in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance”
Paul Szarmach, Medieval Academy of America
"The Old English Translation of Augustine's Soliloquies"
Aglae Pizzone, Milan University
"'Imagine there's a tragelaph': Figuring Out the Rise of Fictionality in Byzantium"
Patricia Lovett, Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society
“Lindesfarne Gospels”
Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
“An Illuminated Hebrew Prayerbook from the Rhineland: Ritual and Community”
Nicholas Watson, Harvard University
Claire Fanger, Rice University
“Angel Magic in the Medieval University: John of Morigny Rewrites the Ars Notoria”
Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University
“Jewish Panegyric in the Medieval Mediterranean”
Sheila Bonde, Brown University
Clark Maines, Wesleyan University
"Looking for Christo in the Middle Ages: Wrapping and Unwrapping the Transition from Romanesque to Gothic at Cisterician Ourscamp”
Eric Goldberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Imperator et venator: Louis the Pious and the Carolingian Hunt”
Beverly Kienzle, Harvard University
Travis Stevens, Harvard University
Catherine Mooney, Boston College
"Preaching, Heresy, and the Writing of Female Hagiography"
Katharine Park, Harvard University
"The Science of the Senses: Observation and Experience in Medieval Europe"
Beat Brenk, Università di Roma
"Rhetoric, Ambition and the Function of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo"
Joseph Pucci, Brown University
"Ambiguity in the Personal Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus"
Charles Donahue, Harvard Law School
Legal History Workshop
Katherine Tachau, University of Iowa
“With Weapons Forged by the Enemy: The Bibles Moralisées on the Study of Philosophy, Science, and Law in Thirteenth-Century Paris”