Medieval Studies at UCSB

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Current and Recently Completed Dissertations

The following is a list of titles of current and completed dissertation topics at UCSB involving the Middle Ages:

Under construction
"The State and its Discontents: Florentine Institutions and Tuscan Society, 1282-1382.” (Joseph Figliuolo-Rosswurm, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
“Parliamentary Talking Cures: Trauma, Poetry, and Political Speech in Late Medieval England and Scotland.” (Jonathan Forbes, Advisor: L.O. Aranye Fradenburg)
"The Wound That Makes Whole: Bleeding and Intersubjectivity in Late Middle English Romance.” (Rachel Levinson-Emley, Advisor: L.O. Aranye Fradenburg)
"Active Passions: The Ethics of Auto-Affection in the Literature of Late-Medieval England." (Paul Megna, Advisors: Carol Pasternack, L.O. Aranye Fredenburg, Heather Blurton)
"Hagiography and Speculative History in Anglo-Norman England (Shay Hopkins, Advisor: Heather Blurton)
“The Temple Well Purged or the Spoil of Traditional Religion? Negotiating Religious Identity at the Local Level during the Tudor Reformations, 1530--1553.” (William Keene Thompson; Advisor: Hilary Bernstein)
"Gender Work and Economic Power: Elite Women in Late Medieval Douai.” (Sarah Hanson, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
“Transmission of Knowledge to and between Women in 15th-Century France: Agnès de Bourgogne’s Education and Books.” (Sarah Kaplan, Advisor: Cynthia J. Brown)
“Color's Absence: The Visual Language of Grisaille in Burgundian Manuscripts.”( Sophia Rochmes, Advisor: Mark A. Meadow)

Healing Heart, Mind and Soul: Emotional Distress in Fourteenth-Century Provence (Nicole Archambeau, 2009, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Convent as Classroom: The Education of Women in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Jessica Weiss, 2010, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
A Sign of the Apocalypse or Christendom’s Ally? European-Mongol Relations in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Colleen Ho, 2013, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Provençal Masons and Cistercian Mythology : Sénanque, Silvacane and Le Thoronet (Christine M Bolli, 2007, Advisor: C. Edson Armi)
A Death So Sublime: Theorizing Death and Dying in Medieval England (Donna Beth Ellard, 2010, Advisor L. O. Aranye Fradenburg)
Jewish Women and Their Community in Late Medieval and Renaissance Perugia (Karen Frank, 2012, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Heresy and Religious Life in Fourteenth Century Piedmont (John Scholl. 2012, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
The Changing Status of Converted Jews in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Northern France (Jessica Elliott, 2014, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Rogier van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments Altarpiece : The Intertwining of Liturgical and Devotional Practice (Jennifer Hammerschmidt, 2005, Advisor: Mark Meadow)
Peaceweavers Sisters: Medieval Noblewomen as Military Leaders in Northern France, 1000-1337 ( Katrin Sjursen, 2010, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Landscape, Politics, and Identity: Countess Mahaut of Artois’ Natural Resource Management, c. 1302-1329 (Abigail Dowling 2014, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
A Kind of Marriage: Marriage in Dispute in Medieval Lucca (1341-1361) (Corinne Wieben, 2010, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Now She is Martha, Now She is Mary: Beguine Communities in Medieval Paris (1250-1470) (Tanya Stabler, 2007, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
The Pistoia Choirbooks: An Introduction to the Sources and Repertory (James Vincent Maiello, 2007, Advisors: Alejandro E. Planchart; William F. Prizer)
Caring for the Blind in Medieval Paris: Life at the Quinze-Vingts, 1250-1500 (Mark O'Tool, 2007, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Sicilian Counterpoint: Power and Pluralism in Norman Sicily (Joshua C. Birk, 2006, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Alliterative Revivalism: Oppositional Poetics in Late Medieval Britain (Randy Schiff , Advisors: L. O. Aranye Fradenburg; Carol Braun Pasternack)
Consuming Passion: Poetics of the Eucharist in Late Medieval England (Zia Isola, 2005 Advisors: L.O. Aranye Fradenburg and Michael O'Connell)
Survival and Profit: Witnessing Groups in Post-Vespers Palermo (Mary Lampe, 2007, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Risking Desire: Chaucerian Representations of Erotic Love and the Pagan Past (Alexandra Cook, 2006, Advisors: Aranye Fradenburg and Carol Pasternack)
The Editions and Content of the Crónica Troyana in Late Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Erin Marisa Rebhan, 2006, Advisor: Harry L. Sharrer)
For the Sake of the University of Paris: Jean Gerson, Theological Reform and Secular-Mendicant Conflict (1384-1429) (Nancy McLoughlin, 2005, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Medieval Notaries: Family, Profession and Popular Politics in Thirteenth-Century Bologna (Brian Carniello, 2005, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Carpe Ecclesiam: Households, Identity and Violent Communication Church and State Under Edward I) (Andrew Miller, 2003, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
"Modor of Mercy/Empress of Helle": The Ambivalence of the Virgin in Late Medieval England (Katherine Koppelman, 2002, Advisor: L. O. Aranye Fradenburg)
Soldiers and Settlers: The Knights Templar in Portugal, 1128-1319 (Jose Valente, 2002, Advisor: Francis Dutra)
Woman as Heretic: Gender and Lay Religion in Late Medieval Bologna (Susan Snyder, 2002, Advisor: Carol Lansing)
Dis-Orientation: Master-narratives and Counter-reading of Medieval Writings about Alterity (Eileen Fung, 2001, Advisor: L. O. Aranye Fradenburg)
The Ecclesiastica Construction of Illegitimacy in the Middle Ages (Laura Wertheimer, 2000, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Adolescence in Medieval Culture: The High Medieval Transformation (Fiona Harris Stoertz, 1999, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Angels on the Edge of the World: Alterity and Identity from Aelfric to Chaucer (Kathy Lavezzo, 1999, Advisor: L. O. Aranye Fradenburg)
The Reproductive Unconscious in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Jennifer Hellwarth, 1999, Advisor: Carol Braun Pasternack)
Shaping the Crown of Gold: Constructions of Royal Identity in the First Kingdom of Jerusalem (Deborah Gerish, 1999, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
Constructing Authorship in the Late Middle Ages: A Study of the Books of Guillaume de Machaut, Christine de Pizan and Jean Lemaire de Belges (Deborah McGrady, 1997, Advisor: Cynthia J. Brown)
Power and Lordship in Maine, c. 890-1110 (Richard Barton, 1997, Advisor: Sharon Farmer)
War, Gender, and Religion in Tenth-Century England: Struggles for Identity in Anglo-Saxon Texts (Janice Grossman, 1996, Advisor: Carol Braun Pasternack)