Department of History | The University of Chicago

The University of Chicago
Department of History
1126 E. 59th Street, Mailbox 52
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-4326 -- Office
(773) 702-7550 -- Fax
Email: rfulton@uchicago.edu
Website: http://home.uchicago.edu/~rfulton

Field Specialties
History of Christianity; Medieval European Intellectual, Cultural and Religious History; Medieval Liturgy; the Cult of the Virgin Mary; Scriptural Exegesis and Hermeneutics.

Biography

My research and teaching focus on the intellectual and cultural history of Europe in the Middle Ages, with particular emphasis on the history of Christianity and monasticism in the Latin West. I also offer courses on the history of travel and warfare in the Middle Ages, the history of European civilization, and the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. My first book is a study of the intellectual and emotional origins of the European devotion to Christ in his suffering humanity, with special emphasis on the role of scriptural exegesis and liturgy. My current work addresses the interplay between intellect and empathy in the practical development of a discipline of prayer. I am particularly interested in the work of the emotions on the exercise of violence in both warfare and prayer, and in the interconnections between devotion and both the actual and spiritual experience of battle.

Publications

Weblog: Fencing Bear at Prayer

“Mary.” In Christianity in Western Europe c. 1000-c.1500, eds. Miri Rubin and Walter Simons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 283-96.

“Praying by Numbers.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd ser. 4 (2007): 195-250

History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person. Co-edited with Bruce Holsinger. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

"Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice." Speculum 81.3 (July 2006): 700-733.

"'Taste and See That the Lord is Sweet' (Ps. 33:9): The Flavor of God in the Monastic West." The Journal of Religion 86.2 (April 2006): 169-204.

"The Virgin in the Garden, or Why Flowers Make Better Prayers," Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 4 (Spring 2004): 1-23.

From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Winner of the Journal of the History of Ideas Morris D. Forkosch Prize for "the best book in intellectual history published in 2002". Also awarded the 2006 John Nicholas Brown Prize by the Medieval Academy of America.

" 'Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?': The Song of Songs as the Historia for the Office of the Assumption," Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998): 55-122.

"Mimetic Devotion, Marian Exegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs," Viator 27 (1996): 86-116.

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Rachel Fulton

Associate Professor of Medieval History
Ph.D. Columbia 1994