Religion and Theology
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About the Department
Research
Carolyn Muessig
Reader in Medieval Religion
BA (Buffalo), MA (Toronto), MSL (Toronto), PhD (Montreal)
Phone: 0117 928 7762
Fax: 0117 331 7933
E-mail: c.a.muessig@bristol.ac.uk
Research
Carolyn Muessig's research interests include: preaching, especially the sermons of Hildegard of Bingen and Jacques de Vitry, the role of women in the medieval church and the development of stigmatic theology. She has published editions and translations of the sermons of Jacques de Vitry, and articles on his sermons which discuss chastity, Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena and stigmatics. For seventeen years she was co-editor [with Veronica O'Mara] of the journal Medieval Sermon Studies. Since 2001 she has been series co-editor [with George Ferzoco] of Medieval Religion and Culture (Routledge).
She is Co-director [with Gavin D'Costa] of the Centre for Christianity and Culture. She is the director for the Bristol Institute of Research in the Humanities and Arts (BIRTHA).
Publications
Books
- A companion to Catherine of Siena. Edited by Carolyn Muessig, George Ferzoco and Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Leiden: Brill 2012) [Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 32]
- Expostiones euangeliorum Sanctae Hildegardis . Hildegardis Bingensis Opera Minora. Co-edited with Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007) [Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina — Continuatio Mediaevalis, 226]
- Envisaging Heaven (co-edited with Ad Putter) (London, Routledge, 2007.)
- Sermon, Preacher and Audience in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
- Medieval Monastic Education (co-edited with George Ferzoco; London: Continuum, 2000).
- The Faces of Women in the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry: Commentary, Editions and Translations (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 1999).
- Medieval Monastic Preaching (edited; Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 90; Leiden: Brill, 1998).
Articles Include
- 'Heaven, earth and the angels: preaching paradise in the sermons of Jacques de Vitry.' In Envisaging Heaven, edited by Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 57–72.
- 'Performance of the Passion: The Enactment of Devotion in the Later Middle Ages'. In Elina Gertsman, ed. Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts (Ashgate, 2008), pp. 129–42.
- 'The Community of Discourse: Religious Authority and the Role of Holy Women in the Later Middle Ages.' in Women's Life Experience in Medieval Writing. Edited by Anneke Mulder-Bakker and Liz McAvoy (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2009), pp. 65-81.
- 'The Vernacularization of Late Medieval Sermons: Some French and Italian Examples.' In Medieval Multilingualism: The Late Francophone World and Its Neighbors. Edited by Keith Busby and Christopher Klienhenz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 267-84.
- 'Catherine of Siena in Late Medieval Sermons.' In A Companion to Catherine of Siena. Brill's Companion to the Christian Tradition 32. Edited by Carolyn Muessig, George Ferzoco and Beverly Kienzle. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp.203-226.
- 'The Stigmatic Debate in Theology and Art in the Late Middle Ages.' In The Authority of the Word: Reflecting on Image and Text in Northern Europe, 1400-1700. Edited by Celeste Brusati, Karl Enenkel, and Walter Melion (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 481-504.
Research Students
I am supervising and have supervised numerous research students working in the following areas: Beguine Spirituality, Catherine of Siena, gender and sin, hagiography, Julian of Norwich, masculinity in the Middle Ages, preaching history, liturgy and religion and poetry.Two of my students have won the University of Bristol Outstanding Dissertation Prize in the Faculty of Arts: Eliana Corbari, PhD, 'Dominican Preachers and popular devotion in late medieval Italy' (Awarded 2009). Jennie Sanderson, Mlitt/PhD, 'Sin and gender in late medieval theological sources' (Awarded 2010). If you are a perspective postgraduate student wishing to do a degree in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss possible research topics.