Tom Barton, University of San Diego (on leave for AY 2026–2027)
Heather Blurton, UC Santa Barbara (on leave for AY 2026–2027)
Rowan Dorin, Stanford University
Alison Perchuk, California State University, Channel Islands (on leave for AY 2026–2027)
Richard Ibarra, University of Southern California (2026–2027)
Zrinka Stahuljak, Director, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies (ex officio)
Welcome!
Founded in 1995, the California Medieval Seminar is a venue for the presentation and discussion of work in progress about the medieval past by faculty, graduate students, and scholars in California and beyond. While originally focused on medieval European history, the Seminar has developed over the years into an interdisciplinary medieval studies seminar encompassing a wide range of historical practices (social, political, cultural, economic, etc.) and cognate fields, including art and architectural history, archaeology, linguistics and literary studies, musicology, and religion. The Seminar today offers a vibrant intellectual environment in which emerging and established scholars share written work, build inter- and cross-disciplinary networks, and engage with an ever-wider range of topics, fields, geographical regions, and methods. We extend our fullest welcome to all scholars who share these interests.
The Seminar is held once a quarter during the academic year, on Saturdays, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at UCLA’s CMRS Center for Early Global Studies (306 Royce Hall on Main Campus). The dates of the Seminar are set at the start of each academic year; for AY 2026–2027, the meetings will be held on October 17, 2026; January 30, 2027; and April 3, 2027. We meet simultaneously at UCLA and on Zoom; presenters are expected to attend the seminar in person. Breakfast and lunch are catered on site and offer ample time for socializing and further discussion.
Participation in the Seminar consists of group discussion of pre-circulated papers, typically drafts of articles, book chapters, or dissertation chapters (with complete apparatus). Two of the papers are ordinarily by emerging scholars (including PhD students), and the other two are by established scholars. We allocate one hour per paper, and presenters should anticipate substantial, substantive feedback.
Calls for presenters are circulated via e-mail from the Center approximately two months prior to each meeting. Given the seminar’s objectives of fostering collaboration, reciprocity, and mentorship, we strongly encourage prospective presenters to attend the seminar before proposing a paper for discussion. Funding is available to reimburse some travel expenses for in-person presenters by California-based faculty and graduate students (MA, PhD) from outside of greater Los Angeles.
Throughout its existence, the Seminar has assembled a rich community of colleagues who combine excellence, rigor, collegiality, inclusiveness, and constructiveness in their research, presentations, commentary, and critique. We invite you to join us.
Advance registration is required. To register or inquire, write to cmrs@humnet.ucla.edu. Speakers and paper topics are announced by email. Please let us know if you want to be added to the announcement list.
Papers for the Seminar are downloaded from the file-sharing website box.com. The link to the papers is sent by email upon registration for the seminar. Papers are available to registrants before the meeting so they may read them in advance and discuss them at the seminar.
If you are interested in a discussion and review of your research at one of the upcoming seminars, please write to us with your request.
Previous Session Papers:
SPRING QUARTER 2026 (April 11, 2026)
- Amos Bronner (The Catholic University of America), “Threats and Violence in Carolingian Disputing”
- John Eldevik (Hamilton College), “Apostolic Legends and Visions of Christian Globality in the Twelfth Century: An Indian Cleric Visits Rome”
- Fiona Griffiths (Stanford), “Were Married Clerics Tonsured?”
- Alison Perchuk (CSU Channel Islands), “Narrative Sequences of the Apocalypse in Romanesque Italy: Location, Structure, Function, Meaning”
WINTER QUARTER 2026 (January 31, 2026)
- “The Politics of Failure in late medieval Iceland,” Basil Arnould Price (State University of New York, Oneonta)
- “Homo legum: The Making and Classification of Legal Experts in Montpellier, 1200-1380,” Shahrouz Khalifian (Mount Saint Mary’s University)
- “When is a Document Lost? Interrogating Archival Silence in Early Medieval Italy,” Maya Maskarinec (University of Southern California)
- “How Medieval Judaism Became a System: Dogma and Principles of Faith in Fifteenth-Century Sepharad,” Bénédicte Sère (Institut Universitaire de France / University of Paris-Nanterre / EHESS-Paris)
FALL QUARTER 2025 (November 8, 2025)
- “Experiment and Imagination in the Works of Robert Grosseteste,” Bernardo S. Hinojosa (Stanford University)
- “Holy Art, Divine Healing: Tattooing in the Medieval World,” Esther Liberman Cuenca (Texas A&M University)
- “Unsettling Images: Race and Ethnicity in a Medieval Coptic Painting,” Heather A. Badamo (UC Santa Barbara)
- “Before Courtly Love: Early Arabic Conceptions of the Ideal Lover,” Allison Kanner-Botan (UCLA)
SPRING QUARTER 2025 (May 3, 2025)
- “Facing the Interpellating Gaze of God at Sainte Foy in Conques: Conscience, Voice, and Tears,” Bissera Pentcheva (Stanford University)
- “Anonymous Master of Death Painting and Plague,” Patrick Hunt (Stanford University)
- “Paleogenetics and History: New Answers to New Questions,” Pat Geary (UCLA)
- “Reason, Justice, and Morality: How Galbert of Bruges Built His Providential Narrative,” Julia Nowakowska (Wesleyan University)
WINTER QUARTER 2025 (February 22, 2025)
- “Rigactere, Picçicarelle et Tricole: female food and fruit sellers in late medieval and Renaissance Italy,” Edward Loss (Università di Bologna)
- “Killing It: Comedies of the Dead,” Jamie Kreiner (UCLA)
- “Giving Up: Legal Change and the Emergence of the Remissiones actionum in Norman Salerno (c.1087-1189),” Patrick Morgan (California Institute of Technology)
- “Orthography, Beaches, and Blankness: European Representations of Indigenous Encounters in Northwest Africa,” Toby Yuen-Gen Liang (Academia Sinica)
FALL QUARTER 2024 (October 5, 2024)
- “Medieval Sovereign Debt: Source of Capital Constrains Resolution of Distressed Debt,” Dr. Sally Gordon (Independent Scholar)
- “Clerical Inheritance and Intangible Property in Twelfth-Century Romance,” Daniel Reeve (UCSB)
- “Sharing Memories: Women’s Liturgical Donations in Fourteenth-Century Zadar,” Giulia Giamboni (UCSB)
- “(Medieval) Reasoning Under Uncertainty: An Introduction to the Conjectural Arts,” Jennifer Jahner (CalTech)
SPRING QUARTER 2024 (May 18, 2024)
- “The Iberian Reliquary around the Year 1000: Moving Bones and Reinforced Ideologies,” Jesús Rodríguez Viejo (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)
- “The Personal Geography of a Medieval Mediterranean Queen: Reassessing the Life of Isabella II, Empress of Rome and Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily (r.1225-1228),” Ana Nunez (Stanford)
- “Richard the Lionheart at the End of Time.” Jay Rubenstein (USC)
- “Croatian and Dalmatian Participants in the Organization of the Wedding of King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary – Croatia and Anne of Foix – Kendal,” Tomislav Matic (Croatian Institute of History)
WINTER QUARTER 2024 (Feb 24, 2024)
- Jessie Sherwood (UC Berkeley), “Killers of Christ and Enemies of God: Intentional Deicide in the Twelfth Century”
- Fiona Griffiths (Stanford), “The Marriage of a “Clerk and Canon” in Twelfth-century Paris: Peter Abelard and the Law concerning Clerical Celibacy”
- Manuel Kamenzin (Stanford), “(Not) the Promised One? Emperor Frederick III, political prophecies, and the difficulty of managing expectations”
- K. Meira Goldberg (Fashion Institute of Technology/ Foundation for Iberian Music, CUNY Graduate Center), “Practice-Based Research as a Historical Methodology: A Flamenco Dancer’s Proposal”
FALL QUARTER 2023 (Nov 11, 2023)
- Heather Blurton (UCSB), “The Confused House of Oedipus’: The Life and Times of Richard the Lionheart”
- Jesse Izzo (Stanford), “Mediterranean Crosscurrents: Frankish Syria and Mamluk Egypt in their Shared Regional Context, c.1260-1285″
- Catherine Rosbrook (Universiteit Gent), “Life before the monastery: representations of the trajectories of monastic agents in tenth- and early eleventh-century vitae”
- Nancy McLoughlin (UCI), “Philippe de Mézières’ Visualizations of Gender, Crusade, and Community”
SPRING QUARTER 2023 (May 20, 2023)
- Jay Rubenstein (University of Southern California), “The Paranoid Style in Frankish Crusading”
- Esther Liberman Cuenca (University of Houston-Victoria/Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), “Oath-Taking and the Performance of Urban Customary Law”
- Elizabeth Wells (University of California-Irvine), “Rex Offret: The Visuality of Royal Power in the Early Medieval Mediterranean”
- Teo Ruiz (University of California-Los Angeles), “Ávila for the Queen: War and Fiscal Violence against Religious Minorities in Late Medieval Castile”
WINTER QUARTER 2023 (February 11, 2023)
- Peter Scott Brown (University of North Florida), “Opportunity Cost and the Will to Build at Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers: Economics and Monumentalism in the Eleventh Century”
- Warren C. Brown (CalTech), The Criminalisation of Violence in the Medieval West
- Joan Dusa, (Independent Scholar), “Canon Law and the Marginalization of the Eastern Church in the Fourteenth Century”
- Maureen C. Miller (University of California, Berkeley), Reframing the “Documentary Revolution” in Medieval Italy
FALL QUARTER 2022 (October 29, 2022)
- Fabrizio Conti (John Cabot University) “Paganism, ‘Superstition’, and Christianization in Late Antique Northern Italy Through the Sermons of Maximus of Turin”
- Armando Torres Fauaz (Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica) “Boni homines/ boni viri : un modèle d’idonéité et d’habileté dans l’Occident médiéval”
- Jordan Claridge (London School of Economics) “(Real) Wages in the Middle Ages: The Economic Implications of In-Kind Payment on Medieval English Demesnes, 1200-1400″
- Marta Albalá Pelegrín (Cal Poly Pomona) “Iberian Theater of Conquest in Rome: The Image of Islam and the Ottoman Turks (1456-1493)”
SPRING QUARTER 2022 (May 7, 2022)
- Jennifer Jahner (Caltech) “Apocalypse Unfurled: Origins and End Times in the Genealogical Roll”
- Franziska Kleybolte (Stanford University) “‘Thrown to the Ground’: The Christian Appropriation of Synagogues on the Iberian Peninsula in the 14th and 15th Centuries—Introductory Words”
- Thomas Barton (University of San Diego) “Muslims on the Public Stage: Non-Christian Municipal Service, Christian Hegemony, and Hybridity in Late-Medieval Iberia”
- Piotr Górecki, (UC, Riverside) “Irreducible Ambiguity? The Line Between Custom and Statute in the Lawmaking of Thirteenth-Century Poland.”
WINTER QUARTER 2022 (February 12, 2022)
- Richard Rush (UC, Riverside) “The Life of the Jura Fathers”
- Jane Beal (University of La Verne) “A Medieval Search for the Historical Jesus? The Vita Christi in Ranulf Higden’s Latin Compilation and John Trevisa’s English Translation”
- Alan Bernstein (University of Arizona) “Hell on Horseback: Damning Others in Tales of the First Crusade”
- Jessica Zisa (UC, Santa Barbara) “Botte for I am a woman’: Loving and Willing with Julian of Norwich’s Extended Mind”
FALL QUARTER 2021 (October 30, 2021)
- Jessie Sherwood (UC, Berkeley) “Converts in the Law: Rules and Norms for Baptism and Apostasy in the Early Middle Ages”
- Padraic Rohan (Stanford University) “Emergence of a Financial Aristocracy: The Genoese and the Casa di San Giorgio”
- Geoffrey Koziol (UC, Berkeley) “Dhuoda’s Christ”
- Rebekkah Hart (UC, Riverside) “Powders and Plasters: Alabaster and the Curative Consumption of Medieval Sculpture”
SPRING QUARTER 2021 (April 17, 2021)
- Christopher Bacich (Stanford University), “The Death of the Soul and the ‘Heresy’ of This Life”
- Fiona Griffiths (Stanford University), “Noble Fathers and Low-status Daughters in the Eleventh Century: Rilint, libera, and Hiltigund, presbyterissa”
- Peter Scott Brown (University of North Florida), “The Last Iconoclast: Joscelin de Parthenay and the Origins of Romanesque Sculpture”
- Richard Ibarra (UCLA), “Piety and Display: Processions, Confraternities, and Charity in Seville”
WINTER QUARTER 2021 (February 20, 2021)
- Warren Brown (Caltech), “Laypeople and Kings in the Carolingian Formula Collections”
- Rachel Podd (Fordham University), “Studying the Physically Impaired and Disabled Body in Late Medieval England”
- Katherine Rush (University of California, Riverside), “Ivories and Inventories: Tracking Production and Patronage in Late Medieval French Household Records”
- Esther Liberman Cuenca (University of Houston-Victoria), “Bad Customs and Civic Ordinances in Medieval and Early Modern British Towns”
FALL QUARTER 2020 (November 14, 2020)
- Filipa Lopes (FCSH/Universidade Nova de Lisboa and École nationale des chartes), “Studying pre-modern family archives: a case study about the archive of the viscounts of Vila Nova de Cerveira”
- Richard Rush (University of California, Riverside), “Those Gluttonous Gauls: Gluttony and Abundance as a Late Roman Stereotype”
- Robin Reich (Columbia University), “Materia Medica into Spices: Between literary and tacit exchange”
- Thomas Barton (University of San Diego ), “‘Most Nefarious…Coitus with Christian Women’: Interfaith Sex and Social Control in the Fourteenth Century”
SPRING QUARTER 2020 (May 2, 2020)
- Canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
WINTER QUARTER 2020 (February 8, 2020)
- Maya Maskerinec (University of Southern California), “Genealogies of Saints: The Specter of the Anicii”
- Lane Baker (Stanford University), “Regulating Noise with Church Law (1200 – 1400)”
- Stephen Jaeger (University of Illinois), “The Archbishop is dead – Long Live London! William Fitzstephen’s Metrography, 1174”
- Alison Locke Perchuk (CSU, Channel Islands), “Racism and Medievalism in the Architecture of Prewar California”
Before 2020