Medieval Seminar

The Medieval Seminar gathers scholars interested in the premodern world (ca. 300-1700) to discuss work in progress. Our regular members are drawn from the departments of Classics, Religion, History, Art History, French and Italian, German Studies, English, Spanish and Portuguese, Music, the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College Libraries, the Undergraduate Deans Office, and a number of scholars from other regional institutions (Norwich University, Middlebury, UVM, etc.). For over four decades, the seminar has met monthly on the third Wednesday during term (Oct, Nov, Jan, Feb, April, May). The seminar, which has been meeting in some capacity since the 1960s, is the intellectual hub for the vibrant community of medievalists who are otherwise scattered in different departments. Beyond this, the seminar achieves several things. It offers a forum for its members to get feedback on work-in-progress; it permits attendees to keep current in the work being done in other disciplines; it serves as a meeting point and an organizing principle for the medievalist community at Dartmouth and beyond; and most importantly, it fosters what for many of us is our most important and nourishing intellectual community at the college and elsewhere. If you wish to be added to the mailing list, please contact cecilia.gaposchkin@dartmouth.edu. Our current schedule and past seminars (since 2010) are listed below.

The schedule for the 2025-2026 Medieval Seminar is as follows, below. As always, we meet at 5:30, with dinner generously provided by the Provost's Office, and refreshments generously provided by the Leslie Center for the Humanities.

October 15, 2025.  1930s Room, Rocky.  Asaph Ben-Tov. Dartmouth College.  Department of Jewish Studies. "Habent sua fata libelli. A Late Medieval Rabbi's polemic and its Early Modern Christian and Jewish Readers: Yom-Tov Lipman Mühlhausen's Sefer Nizzaḥon (Book of Victory/Disputation, c. 1400)"

November 8, 2025.  Saturday: Medieval Colloquium. 

• Elina Gertsman, Distinguished University Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Professor and Acting Chair of Art History, Case Western University.
• Fiona Griffiths, Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professorship of Humanities, Professor of History, Stanford University.

January 21, 2026. Haldeman 125. Carl Estabrook. Dartmouth College. Department of History. "Lay-Clerical Conflict in 17th-c English Cathedral Cities."

February 18, 2026. Haldeman 125. Elizabeth Mattison. Dartmouth College. Hood Museum of Art.  "Fleeting Colors: Pigments, Decay, and the Loss of Art in the later Middle Ages."

April 15, 2026.  Haldeman 125. Jessie Beckman. Dartmouth College. Department of English.  "Thomas Nashe and the Violence of Characterization."

May 20, 2026. Haldeman 125. Aseel Najib. Dartmouth College. Department of History. "Law's Afterlife: Fiscal Jurisprudence in Eight-Century Iraq."

The schedule for the 2024-2025 Medieval Seminar is as follows, below. As always, we meet at 5:30, with dinner generously provided by the Provost's Office, and refreshments generously provided by the Leslie Center for the Humanities.

Note: Our October and November seminars will be held in the 1930 Room in Rocky.  Our Winter and Spring seminars will be held in 125 Haldeman.

October 16, 1930 Room Rockefeller 106.  Laura Ackerman Smoller (Dartmouth '81). University of Rochester. History. "Star-Gazers from the Mount of Victory: The Magi and Astrology in the Later Middle Ages."

November 20, 1930 Room Rockefeller 106.  Walter Simons. Dartmouth College. History.  "Were There Is a Will: The Heresy of the Free Spirit, the Swesteren, and the Lollards (no, not the English Lollards) of the Lower-Rhine and the Low Countries (c. 1290- c. 1380)"

January 15, 125 Haldeman. Joseph Ackley (Dartmouth '03). Wesleyan University. Art History. "The Natural Philosophy of Gold, from Hildegard of Bingen to Early Alchemy."

February 19, 125 Haldeman. Aseel Najib. Dartmouth College. History. "Imperial Courts and Holy Cities: Gendered Mobility in the Abbasid Period."

April 16, 125 Haldeman. Andrea Tarnowski. Dartmouth College. French and Italian.  "Inscriptions of Loyalty in Word and Image."

May 21, 125 Haldeman. Sean Field. University of Vermont. History. "The Lives of Colette of Corbie (d. 1447) by Perrine de Baume and Pierre de Vaux: A New Chronology."

The schedule for the 2023-2024 Medieval Seminar is as follows, below. As always, we meet at 5:30 in 125 Haldeman, with dinner generously provided by the Provost's Office, and refreshments generously provided by the Leslie Center for the Humanities.

October 18, 2023. Charles Briggs. History. University of Vermont.  "The Dominicans and a Mirror of Princes in the Early Fourteenth Century."

November -- Our seminar is superseded by our Colloquium, on November 18, 2023. 

January 17, 2024. Cecilia Gaposchkin. Department of History. Dartmouth College. "Saint-Denis's relics inventory of ca. 1235."

February 21, 2024. Jenny Lynn. Department of Classics. Dartmouth College. "A Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours in the Rauner Special Collections Library."

April 17, 2024. Therese Banks. Department of French. Middlebury. "The Literary Mutations of Saint Louis: Rhetorics of Violence & Myths of French Racialization in the Late Medieval Period."

May 15, 2024.  Christopher MacEvitt.  Department of Religion. Dartmouth College.  "Frankish Identity in the Age of Collapse: Gender, Crusade, and Nostalgia."

After 18 months of meeting remotely, the Medieval Seminar looks forward to returning to our in-person seminars in Fall 2022.

Our tentative schedule is as follows.

October 19, 2022. Michelle Warren. Comparative Literature. Dartmouth College. "The Medieval of the Long Now: Henry of Huntingdon and the 10,000 Year Book"

November 16, 2022. Monika Otter. English Department. Dartmouth College. "Menippean Scales: Proprioception and Knowledge."

January 18, 2023. Matthew Ritger. English Department. Dartmouth College. "Milton and the Literary Workhouse"

February 15, 2023. Michael Wyatt.  Comparative Literature Department.  Dartmouth College. "Aristo and the Arabs: Contexts for the 'Orlando furioso.'"

April 19, 2023. Ashley Offill.  Hood Museum of Art. Dartmouth College. The Creation of a Saint: St. Andrea Corsini's Canonization Celebrations in Florence."

May 17, 2023. Nick Camerlenghi. Art History Department. Dartmouth College. "Mapping Medieval Rome."

October 20, 2021: Andrea Tarnowski. Department of French and Italian. Dartmouth College. History's Companion: Alain Chartier's Quadrilogue Invectif

November 17, 2021: Sean Field. Department of History. University of Vermont. "A Female Apostle in Medieval Italy: The Life of Clare of Rimini."

January 19, 2022: Elizabeth Mattison. The Hood Museum of Art.  Dartmouth College.  "Casting History for the Future in the Reliquary Bust of St. Lambert in Liège."

February 16, 2022: Kate Leach. Undergraduate Deans Office. Dartmouth College. "Conformity and Innovation in Premodern Welsh Medical Charms."

April 20, 2022. Patrick Meehan. Department of History. Dartmouth College. "Henry Monte, German Crusaders, and the Long Memory of Baltic Resistance."

May, 18, 2022. Jessica Beckman. Department of English. Dartmouth College. "Kinetic Texts: Anne Locke and the Spatial Poetics of Early Modern Print."

January 20, 2021: Danielle Callegari. Department of French and Italian, Dartmouth College. "Dante's Gluttons: Food and Society in Medieval Italian Literature."

February 17, 2021: Elizabeth Kassler-Taub. Department of the History of Art. Dartmouth College. "The Memory of Empire: Early Modern Palermo and the Architecture of Habsburg Power."

October  – Cancelled due to COVID

November – Cancelled due to COVID

October 16, 2019.  Sachi Schmidt-Hori,  Department of Asian Cultures and Languages. "Overcoming Yoshitsune's Shortcoming of Shortness: National Identity, Masculinities, and Corporeality in the Cultural History of Japan."

November meeting.  Superseded by Medieval Colloquium.  Emma Dillon and Sara Lipton.

January 15, 2020. Cecilia Gaposchkin. Department of History. "The Cross Invincible".

February 19, 2020: Carl Martin, Department of English, Norwich University. "The Cloak or the Clog? Tudor portraiture and Sir Thomas Wyatt's First Satire."

April 15, 2020  – Cancelled due to COVID

May 20, 2020 – Cancelled due to COVID

October 17, 2018. Monika Otter. Department of English. "Of Psalmody and Mondegreens: Interiority and Expressivity in Sung Texts"

November 14, 2018. Laurence Hooper. Department of French and Italian. "Radical Hope and Personal Citizenship in Dante's Paradiso."

January 16, 2019. Nick Ostrau. Department of German. "Touched by the Odor that Sound Makes: Synesthetic Performances and Their Breakdown in Gottfried's Tristan Narrative"

February 20, 2019. Charlie Briggs. Department of History, University of Vermont. "Dominicans and Political Counsel in Early Fourteenth-Century Italy."

April 17, 2019. Paul Carranza. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. "Dante in Fifteenth-Century Spain: Between Commentary and Poetic Creation." 

May 15. 2019. Steve Nichols. Department of French. Johns Hopkins (quondam Dartmouth). "Places of Thought: Environment and Perception in Medieval French Poetry"

October 18, 2017.  Sean Griffin. Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College.  "Memory Eternal: Liturgy and History in the Medieval Mediterranean."

November: Superseded by Medieval Colloquium. Seeta Chaganti and Miri Rubin.

January 17, 2018.  Kevin Reinhart, Department of Religion."What to Make of Ritual Texts: are ritual texts, texts?"

February 21, 2018. . . Nicola (Nick) Camerlenghi. Department of the History of Art. "Reverse Archaeology: The Virtual Basilica of San Paolo in Rome"

April 18, 2018. Tim Baker, Humanities, Religion, IWR, and Classics. "Sacred Space and the Limits of Liminality: the Monastery as Jerusalem."

May 16. 2018. . . Christopher MacEvitt, Department of Religion. "A new Bethlehem in Rome: Santa Maria Maggiore and the loss of the Holy Land, 1291."

October and November: New England Medieval Symposium, held at Dartmouth.

January 18, 2017. William Summers.  Department of Music. Discussion of his new book on English Music.

February 15, 2017. Monika Otter.  Department of English. "Magnum iocum dare: literature as play in the eleventh century."

April 19, 2017.  Peter Travis.  Department of English.  "Chaucer's Franklin's Tale: Parataxis, Sursanure, and 'Trouthe'."

May 17, 2017. Charles Briggs. Department of History. University of Vermont. "Roger Waltham's Compendium morale: History, the Classics, and Political Advice in Fourteenth-century England"

October 21, 2015. Michelle Warren, Department of Comparative Literature. "The Digital Humanities and Medieval Studies."

November: Superseded by Medieval Colloquium.. Jacqueline Jung and Rita Copeland

January 20. 2016.  Emily Gray, Department of History, Norwich University. "The Early Reformation etchings of Daniel Hopfer."

February 24, 2016.  Jane Carroll, Department of the History of Art,."Addressing Power.  1506-1509 and Burgundian Politics."

April 20, 2016 Michelle Clarke. Department of Government.  "Machiavelli's Virtuous Princes."

May 18: Steve Nichols, Department of History, Johns Hopkins University (quondam Dartmouth). "The Trouble with Castration: The City of God & The Romance of the Rose."

October 15, 2014.  Lara Harb, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages.  "Medieval Arabic Literary Criticism: Problems and Approaches."

November 19, 2014. Paul Cobb, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations/History at UPenn. "Charlemagne's Muslim Elephant." 

January 14, 2015. Ruth Nisse, Professor of English, Wesleyan University. "A Tenth-Century Hebrew Aeneid and the Renewal of Epic."

February 25, 2015.  Andrea Tarnowski. Department of French and Italian. "And End in Time: Philippe de Mézières and Nicopolis."

April 15, 2015. Richard Kremer, Department of History. "Between Practice and Theory: Incunable Almanacs and Practica as Trading Zones?"

May 20, 2015: Laurence Hooper, Department of French and Italian "The author of Dante's 'Vita nova' between Christian exile and Learnèd Poet?"

October 16, 2013. Peter Travis

November: Superseded by Medieval Colloquium. Susan Einbinder and Daniel Hobbins

January 15, 2014. Scott Millspaugh, Department of French and Italian. "Novitas/Vetustas: Geryon, Bonagiunta, and Dante's Rhetoric of the 'New'."

February 19, 2015. Charlie Briggs, Department of History, University of Vermont. "Reassessing Gilles of Rome"

April 16, 2014. Nick Camerlenghi, Department of the History of Art. "The Origins of the Florentine Cathedral Dome: Brunelleschian Rupture or Historiographic Rapture?"

May 21, 2014. Jane Carroll. Department of the History of Art.  "Die Jagd nach der Treue, or When Desire met Devotion"

October 17, 2012.  Dana Polanichka '02. Department of History, Wheaton College.  "The Very Personal History of Nithard: Family and Honor in the Carolingian World."

November 21, 2012. Adrian Randolph. Department of the History of Art. "Before the Reclining Nude."

January 16, 2013. Cecilia Gaposchkin. Department of History. The Echoes of Victory: Liturgical Commemoration in the West of the Capture of Jerusalem

February 20, 2013. Christopher MacEvitt, Department of Religion.  "True Romans: Remembering the Crusades among Eastern Christians"

April 17, 2013. Monika Otter, Department of English. "Vade Poeta Vetus: Estrangement, Embarrassment and parody in the Medieval Reception of Classical Literature."

Mary 15, 2013. Carl Martin, Department of English, Norwich University. "Bisclavret and the Subject of Torture."

October 19, 2011. Monika Otter, Godric of Finchale's Canora Modulatio: The Visual and Auditory Worlds of a Twelfth-century Contemplative

November: Superseded by Medieval Colloquium. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Daniel Smail

January 18, 2012. Jonathan Newman, Love-Rhetoric and Clerical Mediation in Troilus and Criseyde and Boncompagno da Signa's Rota verneris

February 15, 2012.  Michelle Warren, Dartmouth College, CompLit.  "From Good History to Bad Romance."

April 18, 2012.  Charlie Briggs, UVM History, "Morality, Politics, and Scholarly Authority in Later Medieval Compendia of the Virtues."

May 16, 2012.  Pamela Sheingorn, Departments of History, Theater, and Art History, (CUNY, emerita). "Jean Gerson's Heroic Poem, Josephina."

October 20, 2010.  Adrian Randolph, Department of the History of Art. "Lip Service."

November 17. 2010. Noelia Cirnigliaro. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. "Topophilia and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Theater."

January 19, 2010.  James Murphy. Department of Government. "Opus Dei: Prayer or Work? The Spirituality of Work in Sts. Benedict and Escriva."

February 16, 2011. Charles Briggs, Department of History. University of Vermont.  "Publishing Political Virtue in the Later Middle Ages.. [Cancelled]

April 20, 2011. Tristan Kay, Department of French and Italian. "Dante as Dido, Dante as Aeneas"

May 18, 2011. Nancy Sevcenko, Art History, and Pamela Sheingorn, History, Theater, and Art History, CUNY (emerita).  "A Byzantine prince and princess of the 12th century, and their respective artistic commissions: the relevance of biography?"