I teach a variety of courses in ancient and medieval European history. I am also the coordinator of the Classical Studies minor program and the faculty adviser to the Women's and Men's Ultimate (Frisbee) Clubs -- a sport that I have played for more than 20 years.
Fall 2013 courses:
- The Ancient World: Greece and Rome (200-level)
- Monks, Heretics, and Scholars (300-level)
- Lucretius, De rerum natura [On the Nature of Things] (1-credit Honors seminar)
Spring 2013 courses:
- Foundations of Western Civilization
- Medieval Civilization (200-level)
- Seminar: The Conversion of Rome
Other courses I teach include:
- Ithaca Seminar: Thinking with Animals in the Middle Ages
- Early Science and Medicine in the West (200-level)
- Ancient Greece (300-level)
- Seminar: Renaissance of the Twelfth Century
- Seminar: Medieval Heresy
My research focuses on the intersections of medicine, philosophy, theology, and natural philosophy (or "science") in the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance. I am especially interested in changing conceptions of the relationship between body, soul, and mind, and of human nature as a whole. I am also interested in thought about animals and comparisons between animals and humans.
My current projects:
- My main project is a book entitled: Medical Anthropology in the Late Middle Ages: Body, Soul, and the Virtues according to Peter of Abano (d. 1316). This book considers ways that medical theory contributed to new ways of conceptualizing human nature in the late Middle Ages.
- I am writing a chapter for the book, A Companion to Jean de Jandun, ed. V. Syros.
- As a longer-term project, together with my colleague Tine Schwaenepoel in Belgium, I am creating an edition of a medieval Latin commentary on the Aristotelian Problems, an interesting collection of problematic questions about nature from the ancient world. If you are a student who has completed two years of Latin, let me know if you are interested in working on this as an independent study.
Publications:
- "Medicine and Moral Virtue in the Expositio Problematum Aristotelis of Peter of Abano," Early Science and Medicine 11 (2006), 302-335.
- (with Pieter De Leemans) "Animals and Anthropology in Medieval Philosophy," in A Cultural History of Animals, vol. 2: The Medieval Age, ed. B. Resl (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2007), 153-178 and 228-232 (notes).
- "A Medical Perspective on the Soul as Form of the Body: Peter of Abano on the Reconciliation of Galen and Aristotle," in Psychology and the Other Disciplines: A Case of Cross-Disciplinary Interaction (1250-1750), ed. Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Sander de Boer, and Cees Leijenhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 275-295.
- "Les complexions vertueses: La physiologie des vertus dans l'anthropologie médicale de Pietro d'Abano," (trans. by A. Robert) Médiévales 63 (Fall 2012), 59-74.
