Sara Ritchey
Curriculum vitae
CURRENT POSITION:
Executive Director, Maraist Family Foundation
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
August 2024-present: Professor Emerita in History
2023-2024: Distinguished Professor of the Humanities
2022-present: Professor of History, Affiliated Faculty, Religious Studies
2017-present: Associate Professor of History, Affiliated Faculty, Religious Studies
University of Louisiana, Lafayette
2016-2017: Department Head, Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy
2013-2017: Sagrera Family Memorial Endowed Chair in History, Associate Professor of History
2007-2013: Assistant Professor of History
2005-2006: Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Wesleyan University
2006-2007: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History and Department of Religion
EDUCATION
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2005, Ph.D. History (with distinction), University of Chicago
2000, M.A. History, University of Texas at Austin
1998, B.A. History (Summa Cum Laude / Phi Beta Kappa), Tulane University
PUBLICATIONS
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Books:
2021: Acts of Care: Recovering Women in Late Medieval Health. Cornell University Press.
Reviewed in: Speculum (97.3); Journal of the American Academy of Religion (89.4); Social History of Medicine (9.1); Comitatus (52); Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis (134.3); Bulletin of the History of Medicine (95.4).
2014: Holy Matter: Changing Perceptions of the Material World in Late Medieval Christianity (Cornell University Press).
Reviewed in: American Historical Review (June 2015); Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures (41:2 2015); The Medieval Review (15.05.05);Common Knowledge (22.1 2016); Catholic Historical Review (October 2015);Magistra: A Journal of Women’s Spirituality in History (Winter 2014); English Historical Review (March, 2016); Journal of Religion (April, 2016); Religious Studies Review (June, 2016); Journal of Religious History 40(2016); Journal of Ecclesiastical History (January, 2017)
Edited Volumes:
2020: Gender, Health, and Healing, 1250-1550, co-edited with Sharon Strocchia (Amsterdam University Press).
**Co-winner of the 2020 Collaborative Project Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender**
2021: Special Issue of Gender & History 33.3 on the theme of "Health, Healing, and Caring" co-edited with Lynn Thomas and Kristin Burnett.
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Essays:
"The Battle for the Meaning of Creole: A Jim Crow Genealogy of the Middle Ages" American Historical Review (Accepted, forthcoming).
"Medieval as Folk: Nineteenth-Century Philology and the Production of Francophone Folklore," Oxford Encyclopedia of English Literature (Accepted, forthcoming).
“Caring by the Hours: The Psalter as a Source of Gendered Healthcare,” in Gendered Histories of Health, Healing, and the Body, 1250-1550, pp. 41-66. Edited by Sara Ritchey and Sharon Strocchia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020.
“Gendering Medieval Health and Healing: New Sources, New Perspectives,” (co-authored with Sharon Strocchia), in Gender, Health, and Healing, 1250-1550, pp. 15-40.
“Health, Healing, and Salvation: Hagiography as a Source of Medieval Healthcare,”Hagiography and the History of Latin Christendom, 500–1500, pp. 417-436. Edited by Samantha Herrick. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
“Dialogue and Destabilization: An Index for Comparative Global Exemplarity,” in Comparative Hagiology: Issues in Theory and Method, pp. 21-29. Edited by Massimo Rondolino, Religions 10 (2019) special issue.
“Prayer as Obstetric Practice: Text, Image, and the Performance of Labor in Cistercian Communities,” in Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World: European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Edited by Costanza Dopfel and Alessandra Foscati. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019
“The Sacrificial Herb: Gathering Prayers in Late Medieval Pharmacy,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Studies 9.4 (2018): 432-443
“The Wound’s Presence and Bodily Absence: The Experience of God in a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript,” in Sensory Reflections: Traces of Experience in Medieval Artifacts, pp. 163-180. Edited by Fiona Griffiths and Kathryn Starkey. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018
“Saints' Lives as Efficacious Texts: Cistercians Monks, Religious Women, and Curative Reading,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 92.4 (October, 2017): 1101-1143
“Cult and Codex: Hagiographic Writing and Carthusian Reading in Royal Library of Belgium MS 8060-64,” Viator: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies46.3 (Autumn, 2015): 255-276
“Affective Medicine: Later Medieval Healing Communities and the Feminization of Health Care Practices in the Thirteenth-Century Low Countries,” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures40.2 (July, 2014): 113-143. Selected as “Article of the Month” by Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index.
“Illness and Imagination: the Healing Miracles of Clare of Montefalco,” pp. 80-99 in The World of St. Francis: Essays in Honor of William R. Cook. Edited by Bradley Franco and Beth Mulvaney. Leiden: Brill, 2014
“Wessel Gansfort, John Mombaer and Medieval Technologies of the Self: Affective Meditation in a Fifteenth-Century Emotional Community,” Fifteenth-Century Studies 38 (July, 2013): 153-174
“Manual Thinking: John Mombaer's Meditations, the Neuroscience of the Imagination, and the Future of the Humanities,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Studies3.2 (Fall 2012): 341-354
“Rethinking the Twelfth-Century Discovery of Nature,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies39.2 (2009): 225-255
“Nature and Spirituality in the Twelfth Century: Problems and Approaches,” Religion Compass4 (June 2009): 595-607
“Spiritual Arborescence: The Meaning of Trees in the Late Medieval Religious Imagination,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality(April, 2008): 64-82
Other essays:
Shazia Jagot, Julie Orlemanski, Sara Ritchey, "What Might a Journal be?" Postmedieval (vol. 12) 2021.
Kristin Burnett, Sara Ritchey, Lynn Thomas, "Introduction: Health, Healing, and Caring" (33.3) 2021
Book Reviews:
2022: Jenni Kuuliala, "Saints, Infirmity, and Community in the Late Middle Ages," Speculum (97.1).
2020: "Saints, Miracles, and the Image: Healing Saints and Miraculous Images in the Renaissance," Sandra Cardarelli and Laura Fenelli, eds., Renaissance Quarterly.
2019: Naama Cohen-Hanegbi, “Caring for the Living Soul: Emotions, Medicine, and Penance in the Late Medieval Mediterranean,” American Historical Review.
2018: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosiniski, “The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman Between Demons and Saints,” History of Religion (612).
2017: Victoria Smirnova, Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu, and Jacques Berlioz, eds. “The Art of Cistercian Persuasion in the Middle Ages and Beyond: Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue on Miracles and its Reception,” Renaissance Quarterly(70.2).
2017: Zubin Mistry, “Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, 500-900,” American Historical Review(122.2).
2016: Matthew M. Mesley and Louise E. Wilson, eds. “Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100-1500”The Medieval Journal(6.1).
2016: Winfried Büttner, "Leib-und Seelenärzte. Die heiligen Mediziner der Alten Kirche" Bulletin Codicologique (2016/1).
2016: Brett Edward Whalen, “The Medieval Papacy” Church History (85.1).
2015: Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, “The Cult of St. Clare in Early Modern Italy”The Medieval Review (November, 2015).
2015: Tanya Stabler Miller, “The Beguines of Medieval Paris: Gender, Patronage, and Spiritual Authority” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal(44.5).
2015: Fiona J. Griffiths and Julie Hotchin, eds.“Partners in Spirit: Women, Men, and Religious Life in Germany, 1100-1500” The Medieval Review (February, 2015).
2014: Ellen Arnold, “Negotiating the Landscape: Environment and Monastic Identity in the Medieval Ardennes” Early Medieval Europe(22.3).
2013: Maximilian Von Habsburg, “Catholic and Protestant Translations of the Imitatio Christi, 1425-1650: From Late Medieval Classic to Early Modern Best Seller,” Church History (82.2).
2013: Glenn W. Olsen, “Of Sodomites, Effeminates, Hermaphrodites, and Androgynes: Sodomy in the Age of Peter Damian,” Church History(82.1).
2013: J.W. Meek, “Sacred Light: Holy Places in Louisiana” Louisiana History(Spring, 2013).
2011: Marjory Curry Woods, “Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova Across Medieval and Renaissance Europe,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History(42.3).
2011: Rachel Koopmans, “Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England,” The Medieval Review(June, 2011).
2009: Leonie Hicks, “Religious Life in Normandy, 1050-1300: Space, Gender and Social Pressure,” Church History (September, 2009).
2007: Joan Mueller, “The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women” Church History(December, 2007).
Public Writing:
2021: "Healthcare Workers" Aeon.
2015: “Stricter Gun Laws for Abusers Could Save Lives” The Times Picayune, August 19, 2015, AM2.
2013: "Cuts Leave Abuse Victims No Options" The Daily Advertiser January 29, 2013.
2012: “For Priest’s Wives, A Word of Caution,” New York Times, 13 January 2012, sec A, p 23.
2012: “Catholic Priests, Celibacy, and the Marriage Loophole,” Religion Dispatches Magazine, January 10, 2012.
2004: Life of the Spirit, Life of the Mind: Rockefeller Chapel at 75. Chicago: University of Chicago Library.
EXTERNAL FELLOWSHIPS / GRANTS / AWARDS
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2023: Member, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
2020: Co-winner of the Collaborative Project Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender for Gender, Health, and Healing 1250-1550, co-edited with Sharon Strocchia.
2019: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship
2019: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Faculty Fellowship
2017: Paul Oskar Kristeller Fellowship, Renaissance Society of America
2014: American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant
2013: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Summer Stipend Award
2011: Huntington-British Academy Research Fellowship
2005: German Historical Institute, Medieval History Seminar, Venice, Italy
2004-2005: Andrew Mellon Dissertation Fellowship
2004: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow of the Huntington Library
2003: Hill Monastic Manuscript Library Heckman Research Grant
INTERNAL GRANTS AND AWARDS
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2022: Leroy Graf Award for Teaching, Service, and Research
2021: Chancellor's Honors Banquet Award for Research and Creative Activity
2020: College of Arts and Sciences MidCareer Excellence in Research Award, University of Tennessee
2018: Manuscript Review Grant, University of Tennessee Humanities Center
2017: Teacher Recognition for Empowerment, University of Tennessee Panhellenic Society
2015: Sagrera Family Memorial Endowed Professor of History, University of Louisiana
2015: Louisiana Board of Regents ATLAS award
2014: Faculty Research Excellence Award, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
2014: “Women of Excellence” Award, Lafayette Commission on the Needs of Women
2008: Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Office of Disability
Services
2008: Mathé Allain Fellowship, Friends of the Humanities
SELECT PRESENTATIONS
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Invited Talks and Appearances:
"Notes on Performed Knowledge in Medieval Late Women's Communities" UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, Annual Conway Lecture, September 7, 2023
“Orality as Form in the Genesis of Old French,” Edward King Memorial Plenary Lecture, SEWANEE MEDIEVAL COLLOQUIUM, March 24, 2023
“From Archive to Repertoire in Late Medieval Women’s Caregiving Communities,” UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, Madison, November 11, 2022
"Body Knowledge as Orature in Late Medieval Care Communities," Keynote for Indiana University's Medieval Studies Symposium, March 25, 2022.
"Bedside Ritual: Gender and Therapeutic Performance in Late Medieval Liège" Loyola University Chicago Medieval Studies Program, Nov. 8, 2021.
"Feminine Therapeutic Epistemologies: Performance, Repetition, and Erasure in the Late Medieval Lowlands." Seeking Authority Workshop: Women, Genre, and Philosophical Reflections in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Columbia University, Feb. 15-16, 2020.
“Poetry as Healing Performance in Thirteenth-Century Liège,” University of Chicago, May 17, 2019
“Rhythmic Medicine: Poetry and the Pulse in French Books of Hours,” University of Virginia, Nov. 30, 2018.
“Comparative Global Hagiology,” Workshop Facilitator at American Academy of Religion, November 16, 2018
“Healing by the Hours: Liturgical Rhythms of Caregiving in Women’s Religious Communities in Late Medieval Europe” Johns Hopkins University, Department of the History of Medicine October 24, 2018.
“A Regimen of Hours: Thirteenth-Century Psalters and the Visibility of Therapeutic Knowledge,” Rossel Hope Robbins Annual Lecture of the New York Medieval Club, October 3, 2018
“Salvation is Medicine: Therapeutic Constructions and Gendered Erasures in Late Medieval Europe” The Medieval Academy of America, Plenary Address at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11, 2018.
“Specular Therapy: Medicine, Miracle, and the Manuscript Page” Miraculous Images: Buddhist, Hindu, Christian Workshop at the University of Virginia, March 21, 2018.
“Foliated Healing: Miscellanies as Sources for Gendered Medical Practice in the Late Medieval Low Countries” Gendered Histories of Health, Healing, and the Body, 1250-1550, University of Cologne, January 25-26, 2018.
“Saintly Bodies: Materiality, Manuscripts, Movement,” Roundtable on Material Sanctity at International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2017.
Comment: “The Social Positioning of Holy Figures” American Academy of Religion, November 18-21, 2017.
“Wound as Remedy: Sensing the Passion in KBR 4459-70,” Sensory ReflectionsSymposium, Stanford University, October 14, 2016.
Comment: “Gradations of Life: Representing Inanimate Matter in Medieval Manuscripts,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 4-7, 2016.
Comment: “Miracles and Relics” at “Medieval Natures,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, April 1-2, 2016
“Re-reading the Book of the World: Wonder and the Orders of Nature in Medieval Literature and Culture,” Workshop at Indiana University- Bloomington, April 15-16, 2016.
Response to Plenary Panel: “Healing Words,” Medicine of Words: Literature, Medicine, and Theology in the Middle Ages, St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, UK September 11-12, 2015.
“The Gender of Nature,” University of Chicago Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality: The Pre-Modern Body Project: Nature and the Natural in the Middle Ages, May 3-4, 2013.
“Political Activism and the Academy,” Roundtable Sponsored by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11, 2012.
“Historiographies of Feeling,” Roundtable Sponsored by the Lollard Society, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11, 2012.
“On the Spiritual Significance of Carthusian Gardens,” Medieval History Seminar, The German Historical Institute, Venice, Italy, October, 2005.
“Our Lady in the Tree: Mandatory Gardening, Book Production and the Body of Christ in Fourteenth-Century Carthusian Spirituality,” Midwest Medieval Symposium, Newberry Library, March, 2005.
Select Conference Papers:
"Mothers, Sisters, and the Play of Time in Late Medieval Convent Drama," Medieval Academy of America, Charlottesville, VA, March 2022.
Response: "Care in the Age of Chaucer," Modern Language Association, Washington DC, January 8, 2022 (Delivered Online)
"Chanson creole: Making Medieval French in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana," CARMEN Worldwide Medieval Network, Cambridge MA, Sept. 3, 2021 (Delivered Online)
"'Guardians of the Sick': The Memory and Erasure of Women Healthcare Workers in the Late Medieval Lowlands," Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, May 28-31, 2020 CANCELLED DUE TO COVID
“The Archive of Mysticism in Thirteenth-Century Liège: A Recuperative Methodology,” Gender in Global Medieval Mysticism Conference, Sonipat, India, March 21-22, 2020 CANCELLED DUE TO COVID
Comment: “Women’s Medicine in the Medieval World,” Medieval Academy of America, Philadelphia, PA, March 6-9, 2019
“Miracle Making and Wonder Faking: Reflections from the Life of Lutgard of Aywières,” American Academy of Religion, Denver, November 17, 2018
“Charms as text and act: Verbal efficacy and the performance of therapy in women’s religious communities” Harvard University Symposium on Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Charms and Medicine, April 6, 2018
“Psalm Prescriptions: Healthcare Advice in Thirteenth-Century Psalters,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Long Island, NY, June 4, 2017
“Salvation is Medicine: Rethinking Medieval Medicine through the Perspective of the Devotional Miscellany,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Nashville, May, 2017.
“Reading Effects: The Sensory Experience of Lectio at Villers” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 10, 2016.
“Hagiographic Healing: Performative Reading and Personal Change in Thirteenth-Century Miscellanies,” Medicine of Words: Literature, Medicine, and Theology in the Middle Ages, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, September 11-12, 2015.
“Her LifeInside the Codex: Repurposing Saints’ Livesin a Fifteenth-Century Monastic Manuscript,” Renaissance Society of America, Berlin, March 2015.
“Healing Communities at the Margins of Medicine in Thirteenth-Century Liège,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Toronto, May, 2014.
“From Bodily Care to Somatic Devotion: Affective Healing between Thirteenth-Century Lives and Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, April 4-5, 2014.
“Saintly Transmissions: Affect and Gender in a Latin Manuscript from the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique” Gulf Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Baton Rouge, LA, September 27-28, 2013.
“Meditation, Education, Devotion: John Mombaer’s Spiritual Exercises in Fifteenth-Century Schools,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2012.
“John Mombaer and the Role of Meditation in Fifteenth-Century Pedagogy,” American Catholic Historical Association, New Orleans, LA, March, 2012.
“Creation, Recreation, Incarnation: Gendering the Twelfth-Century Discovery of Nature” Patristic, Medieval, Renaissance Conference, Villanova, PA, October 2011.
“Seeing Your Body, Changing My Mind: Narrative Healing in Later Medieval Female Saints’ Lives,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May, 2011.
“Seeking Uchronia: Meditation as Re-education for the Post-Historical Humanities,” Babel Working Group, University of Texas at Austin, November, 2010.
“Arboreal/Corporeal: The Body of Saint Francis as a Tree” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July, 2008.
“The Invention of Nature in French Theology,” Louisiana Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Scholars, New Orleans, October., 2007
‘To Preach is to Make a Tree’: Rethinking the Intelligibility of Nature with the French Catholic Avant-Garde,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July, 2007.
“The Arboreal Language of Suffering and Ecstasy among the Late Medieval Friars-Preachers,” Interdisciplinary Christianities Workshop, University of Chicago, November, 2004.
“Scripturing the Body, Knowing the Word: the Body Hermeneutic and Illiterate Audience in the Hagiographic Texts of Thomas of Cantimpré,” Medieval Guild Conference, Columbia University, October, 1999.
“Variations on the Word: Literacy and Religious Behavior in the Vitaeof Two Female Saints,” Texas Medieval Association, West Texas A&M University, September, 1999.
SELECT COURSES
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University of Tennessee:
Gender Theory for Historians | Fall 2022
Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality | Spring 2022
Ritual and Performance in the Middle Ages | Fall 2021
Undergraduate Research Methods Seminar: Gender and Devotion in the Middle Ages | Fall 2018
Gender and Medicine in the Middle Ages | Fall 2018
Graduate Readings Seminar: Hagiography & Historiography | Spring 2018
Intro to Western Civilizations: From Mesopotamia to Monteczuma II | Spring 2017
The High Middle Ages | Fall 2017
University of Louisiana:
World Civilizations, From Çatalhöyük to Contact | per semester, 2007-2016
Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies | Spring 2017
Gender and Medicine in the Middle Ages | Spring 2017, Fall 2014
Graduate Research Methods | Spring 2015
Historiographies of the Body | Spring 2014
Undergraduate Research Methods: women & gender in medieval Christianity | Spring 2013
Medieval Environmental History: nature in the premodern west | Fall 2013, Spring 2011
Graduate Readings Seminar: approaches to religion in history | Spring 2012
Love, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Europe | Fall 2012, Fall 2010
Undergraduate Research Methods: Local Devotion, Global Church | Fall 2011, Spring 2008
Graduate Readings Seminar: Education & Knowledge in the Middle Ages | Spring 2010
Gender and Spirituality in Medieval Christianity | Fall 2010
Medieval Monotheisms | Fall 2009, Fall 2007
Undergraduate Research Methods: The Crusades | Fall 2008
Introduction to the Middle Ages | Spring 2006
Wesleyan University
The Problem of Love in the Twelfth Century | Fall 2006
Nature and Religion in Medieval Europe | Spring 2007
War in the Middle Ages | Spring 2007
PROFESSIONAL, UNIVERSITY, AND COMMUNITY SERVICE ______________________________________________________________________________
Professional Service:
2021-present: co editor-in-chief of postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
2019-2022: Medieval Academy of America AHA programming committee
2019: Organizer of Annual Marco Symposium, "Death and Dying in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam"
2016-present: Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, programming committee
2013-2018: Hagiography Society, Program Chair
2012-present: Peer Review for Oxford University Press, Routledge, Dynamis,Philological Quarterly, Journal of Religious History, Medieval Low Countries, The Mediaeval Journal, Ons geestelijk erf, Medieval Feminist Forum, Viator, Bulletin of the History of Medicine
2008: Conference Coordinator, Louisiana Consortium of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
2002-2004: Editorial Assistant, Critical Inquiry
2003-2004: Medieval Studies Workshop Coordinator, Council for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago
2003: Curator, Life of the Spirit, Life of the Mind: Rockefeller Chapel at 75, historical exhibition
in the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library’s Special Collections
Select Conference Panels Organized:
“Economies of Sanctity” Renaissance Society of America, March 22-24, 2018
“Recentering Sacred Biography: Hagiography as a Category of Analysis for Comparative Sanctities” American Academy of Religion, Boston, November 18-21, 2017.
“Sacred Biography Across Confession and Continents,” Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference, Milwaukee, October 26-29, 2017.
“Context of the Codex” and “Thirty Years of Feasting and Fasting: A Roundtable on Caroline Bynum’s Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 1987-2017” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11-14, 2017.
“Challenging Boundaries: The Uses of Religious Sources in Medieval Medical History: Papers in Honor of Ann Carmichael,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Nashville, May 4-7, 2017.
“Religious Connectivity in Urban Communities,” “Virginity in Song: Digital Tools for the Liturgy,” “Teaching Early Modern Religion with the Other Voice,” Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, March 30-April 1, 2017.
“Material Devotion, Material Decay: The Ephemera of Catholic Devotion in the Long Sixteenth Century,” Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference, Bruges, August 16-19, 2016.
“In Memorium: Tom Head,” “Holy Landscapes and Sacred Space,” and “Holy Celebrity,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2016.
Roundtable: Transatlantic Sanctity on behalf of the Hagiography Society, Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference, Vancouver, October 22-25, 2015.
“Remembering Jacques Legoff,” “Multidisciplinary Saint Bridget,” and “Global Sanctity: Demons and the Demonic” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 14-17, 2015.
“Manuscript and Print,” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, Renaissance Society of America, Berlin, March 26-28, 2015.
“English Martyrs and Martyrologies;” “Relics, Reliquaries, Ornament;” “Shaping Italian Models of Sanctity,” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, Renaissance Society of America, Berlin, March 26-28, 2015.
“Vision, Word, Authority: Caterina & Birgitta,” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, New Orleans, October 17-19, 2014.
“Re-Forming Saints: Textuality and Authority in Sixteenth-Century England,” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, New Orleans, October 17-19, 2014.
“Medieval Mothers: Reproductive Health in the Middle Ages,” on behalf of the Society for
Medieval Feminist Scholarship, International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May
8-11, 2014.
“Saints for All Occasions,” “The Economics of Sanctity,” “Global Sanctity,” “Multidisciplinary St. Anne,” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 8-11, 2014.
Co-organizer (with Willemien Otten): “Nature and Creation: Reassessing Concepts,” International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 8-11, 2014.
“Saints and Sensibility” on behalf of the Hagiography Society, International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-12, 2013
University Service:
(University of Tennessee)
2018-present: Member, Steering Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality
2017-present: co-founder and co-organizer of University of Tennessee Medical Humanities
Working Group
2017-present: Marco Graduate Committee, University of Tennessee
(University of Louisiana)
2015-2016: University Search Committee, Title IX Officer
2014: University Gender Equity Caucus (founding member)
2012-2015: Faculty Advisor to Students for the Advancement of Women
2014-2015: Faculty Representative, Sexual Assault Task Force
2014-2015: Chair, Graduate Curriculum Committee
2014-2015: Chair, Presidential Council for Campus Sustainability, (member: 2011-2015)
2014-2015: Liberal Arts Representative to the Graduate Council
2012-2015: Liberal Arts Graduate Faculty Peer Review Committee
2011-2013: Diversity Advisory Council, Member
2008-2012: Liberal Arts Representative, University Curriculum Committee
2008-2010: Faculty Advisor to Women Organizing Women
2007-2012: Committee on Honorary Doctorates and Awards
Departmental Service:
(University of Tennessee)
2018-present: Member, Graduate Committee in History
2018: Tenure and promotion committee for Alison Vacca
(University of Louisiana)
2016-2017: Department Head
2014-2015: Modern France Search
2012-2015: Director of Graduate Studies for MA Program in History
2012-2013: Public History Search
2007-2014: Library Committee
2007-2011: Graduate Committee
2010: Presenter, “Sexual Ethics and the Premodern Church,” The Philosophy Club, University of
Louisiana at Lafayette, September 2010.
Community Service:
Judge, Washington Urban Debate League, Season Opener Tournament, October 2022
Chair, Local Schools Advisory Team for Key Elementary, DC Public Schools, 2019-present.
Board of Directors of Faith House of Acadiana, a shelter for women and children, Board Member, 2010-2016; Vice President, 2011-2014; President 2014-2016
Founding Co-Organizer: Lafayette Family Justice Center, 2016
Volunteer, Southern Mutual Help Association, 2015-2017
Panelist, “Moving the Ball Forward: A Panel on Gun Violence,” National Council of Jewish Women, New Orleans, November 12, 2015.
Moderator, “Gender and Gun Violence,” Gun Violence in Louisiana: A Public Symposium,September 28, 2015
Panelist, “Louisiana and the Violence Against Women Act,” for How Women Fare in the Race for the US Senate: The Runoff Between Landrieu and Cassidy, December 2, 2014
Member, Committee on Community Outreach, Hilliard Art Museum, 2014-2015
Member, Lafayette Council on Domestic Violence, 2012-2015
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
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American Historical Association
Medieval Academy of America
Hagiography Society
Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
Renaissance Society of America
American Academy of Religion
ONGOING EDUCATION
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2014: Biology 110, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Professor Sherry Krayesky
2013: Advanced Medieval Manuscripts, Rare Book School, Beinecke Library, Professor Barbara Shailor.
2012: Health and Disease in the Middle Ages, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Wellcome Library, Professors Monica Green and Rachel Scott
2011: Fifteenth-Century Books in Manuscript and Print, Rare Book School, Walters Art Museum, Professors Paul Needham and William Noel
2008: St. Francis of Assisi in the Thirteenth Century, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, Professor William Cook.