Graduate students in medieval culture at the University of Virginia can draw on the rich course offerings provided by the numerous departments represented in the Program in Medieval Studies. While dissertations are often narrowly tailored to meet professional and disciplinary expectations, students at the thesis stage are also encouraged to pursue the kinds of interdisciplinary and transhistorical scholarship reflected in the diverse interests of the faculty. Our graduate students are able to take advantage of any number of on-grounds resources during their courses of study. UVA’s famed Rare Book School, for example, offers steeply discounted tuition for its in-depth seminars in paleography and the history of the book. These courses are often given at consortium institutions such as the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (where recent offerings have included codicology, the fifteenth-century book, and Islamic manuscripts) or the Morgan Library in New York City. The Department of English also sponsors an MA Concentration in Medieval Studies as well as a regular Medieval Colloquium which features graduate and faculty work in progress. Other opportunities for interdepartmental collaboration and intellectual exchange are a regular part of graduate study in medieval culture at UVA. Below is a small sampling of some ongoing and recent dissertations by Ph.D. students in medieval studies at Virginia. (Current and recently former Ph.D. students are encouraged to add their own dissertation descriptions at will!)
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Michael Alexander: "Disputing Vows: Gender and the Construction of Marriage in the Paduan Ecclesiastical Court" (1400-1500) I employ the richly detailed records from nearly 100 matrimonial dispute cases to ask questions about pre-Tridentine conceptions of marriage. My theoretical framework is borrowed from Natalie Zemon Davis' treatment of pardon requests in that I view the presentation proofs of marriage as a performance, but a performance that reveals the way in which the laity viewed and conceived of marriage. In terms of gender, I attempt to explain the overwhelming prevalence of male plaintiffs in cases to enforce a disputed marriage; previous scholarship using these sources has found the majority of plaintiffs to be women. Furthermore, I examine in-depth a heretofore neglected player: the lawyer. Thanks to the rare survival of bills for services, I can show that an expensive lawyer had little effect on the outcome of the case if it otherwise lacked canonical merit. I intend to defend this dissertation in April of 2007.
Dolly Jorgensen: My dissertation examines the development of sanitation infrastructure, including water supply, waste disposal, and street cleaning, in late medieval urban Europe. People in towns have basic environmental needs which they meet using of whatever is around them, often contrary to intended sanitation design. Therefore, governments step in and make social and technological modifications to the systems to control them for the ‘common good’. The dissertation argues that medieval town governments, which have typically been seen as products of elite politics, are shaped largely in response to the material reality of urban living.
Abram Ring (B.A. University of the South; M.A. University of Virginia): I am currently completing my Ph.D. dissertation on Heracles/Hercules in ancient Greek and Roman historiography. My classical interests extend to Greek and Latin prose and poetry (especially epic). In addition to my classical studies, I have devoted my time to various medieval Latin projects including my annotated translation of the epic poem, Waltharius (an online version hosted by Northvegr and a revised print version in the works with Edgar Kent), a translation of Alcuin's Propositiones (yet unpublished), and an on-going translation of the Res Gestae Saxonicae by Widukind of Corvey. Furthermore, I have contributed a number of annotated translations of entries to the Suda On Line Project which is an attempt to provide the first complete English translation of the 10th century Byzantine encyclopedic work called the Suda. I have also developed a computer program (Lector Latinus) designed to aid intermediate and advanced students of Latin in building their vocabulary faster. I hope that the program will aid medievalists who wish to improve their Latin proficiency, as it does have reasonably good support for medieval and ecclesiastical Latin vocabulary.