The Program in Medieval Studies combines the best aspects of an interdisciplinary program with the focused training required for academic careers in a variety of traditional disciplines. The program’s faculty members are drawn from nearly every humanities department at Cornell, offering expertise in disciplines and area studies spanning more than a millennium of languages and cultures—from Old and Middle English literature to Byzantine monuments, from Icelandic sagas to Andalusian architecture, from medieval Latin literature and philosophy to Islamic legal history.

Work in primary archival materials—including Latin and vernacular paleography, textual criticism, and codicology—is well supported by abundant library resources, as well as by faculty dedicated to these fields. Work in gender studies, medieval and modern literary theory, and the post-medieval reception and construction of the “Middle Ages” is also well supported by program faculty and by the full array of other departments and programs at Cornell. Resources for studying Latin and most medieval vernacular languages (including Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Slavonic, Semitic and East Asian languages) are a mainstay of the program. All of these offerings are encompassed within a flexible curriculum tailored to the needs of individual students.

Our diversity of faculty attracts exceptional graduate students from all areas of medieval studies and guides them to dissertations on a broad range of literatures, disciplines, contexts, and approaches. They also enjoy the benefits of carefully mentored training in pedagogical techniques and classroom skills. Students from many other doctoral programs at Cornell are closely involved in the Program in Medieval Studies, and they contribute to a lively and varied community of medievalists that spans Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences.

Department website

Tyler Wolford

Ph.D. Candidate

Publications

  • “To Each According to Their Need: The Various Medical and Charitable Institutions of the Pantokrator Monastery.” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople.  Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout, edd. CEU Medievalia 19.  Budapest: CEU Press, 2019.
  • (Co-authored with Mark Groover) “The Archaeology of Rural Affluence and Landscape Change at the Clemens Farmstead.” Journal of African Diaspora: Archaeology and Heritage 2(2): 131-150. 2013.
Klarman Hall
tjw93@cornell.edu

Education

  • M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2020
  • M.A., Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Koç University, 2014
  • B.A., Anthropology and Classical Languages, Ball State University, 2012

Departments and programs

Links

Anna Waymack

Ph.D. Candidate

Klarman Hall
afw47@cornell.edu

Education

  • M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2016
  • M.A., English, University of Texas at Austin, 2013
  • B.S., Brown University, 2011

Departments and programs

Paul Vinhage

Visiting Lecturer

Publications

“Michael of Cornwall’s First Invective Against Henry of Avranches,” co-authored with Thomas Sawyer, in Journal of Medieval Latin (Under Review)

Klarman Hall
pav47@cornell.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2022
  • M.A. Classics (Latin), Florida State University, 2015
  • M.A. English Literature (Medieval ), Florida State University, 2015
  • B.A. English Literature, University of South Florida, 2012

Departments and programs

Abby Sprenkle

Ph.D. Candidate

Klarman Hall
as3337@cornell.edu

Education

  • M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University
  • B.A.,English Language and Literature and Medieval Studies, Smith College

Departments and programs

Danielle Reid

Ph.D. Candidate

Klarman Hall
dcr227@cornell.edu

Education

  • M.A., History, University of Florida
  • B.A., Classics and Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New College of Florida

Departments and programs

Keywords

  • Late Antiquity
  • Early Byzantium
  • Early Islam

Patrick Naeve

Visiting Lecturer

Publications

“How Does the Earth Speak in the Islamic Middle Ages? Stories of Discovery and Self-Disclosure.” In The Four Elements in the Middle Ages: Earth, edited by Marilina Cesario, Hugh Magennis, and Elisa Ramazzina. Leiden: Brill, Forthcoming.

Klarman Hall
Goldwin Smith Hall
pgn23@cornell.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2022
  • M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2018
  • M.A., English, University of Toronto, 2015
  • B.A., English Honors, Plan II Honors, History, University of Texas at Austin, 2014

Departments and programs

Links

M. Louis McLaughlin

Ph.D. Candidate

Klarman Hall
mlm447@cornell.edu

Education

  • M.A., English, Western Washington University, 2016
  • B.A., English, Loyola University New Orleans, 2011

Departments and programs

Keywords

  • Old & Middle English literature
  • Old French literature
  • Eucharistic literature
  • Theory, Poetics, and Prosody
  • Editorial Theory 

Ryan Lawrence

Ph.D. Candidate

Publications

"Experiencing the Desert in Early Medieval England." Philological Quarterly 99, no. 4 (Fall, 2020): 337-55. 

Klarman Hall
rwl224@cornell.edu

Education

  • B.A., English, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, 2016

Departments and programs

John Wyatt Greenlee

Visiting Lecturer

Publications

Digital Projects

Klarman Hall
jwg239@cornell.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2020
  • M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University, 2016
  • M.A., European History, East Tennessee State University, 2013
  • M.P.A., Non-Profit Management, Park University, 2011
  • B.A., History and Classical Studies, Hamilton College, 2000

Departments and programs

Links

Rae Grabowski

Ph.D. Candidate

Klarman Hall
reg223@cornell.edu

Education

  • B.A., Medieval and Byzantine Studies, The Catholic University of America, 2008

Departments and programs

Keywords

  • Old English literature and literary culture, with an interest in poetry, homilies, and hagiography,
  •  
  • Old Norse,
  •  
  • Theology, spirituality and mysticism,
  •  
  • and Medievalism, Tolkien, and contemporary pop culture.
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