Visiting Scholars
Mellon Faculty Fellowship in Medieval Studies
Kayla Dang, Ph.D.
Our 2024–25 Mellon Fellow is Assistant Professor, Renard Professor of Islamic Studies, at Saint Louis University. Professor Dang received her Ph.D. from Yale University. During her time at the institute, she will be researching and writing a book about the Zoroastrian priesthood in the medieval period. This book tells a new history of the Zoroastrian religion by focusing on its priests—the individuals responsible for recording and transmitting Zoroastrian religious knowledge, which survives in extant Zoroastrian Middle Persian (or Pahlavi) books. Using Arabic sources alongside Middle Persian ones, she studies the priesthood in and as part of Islamic society, and bring Zoroastrianism more firmly into emerging discussions about the interactions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and others in the medieval Middle East.
Byzantine Postdoctoral Fellow
Tyler Wolford, Ph.D.
Our 2024–25 Byzantine Fellow received his Ph.D. from Cornell. During his time at the institute, he will research the fortification of monasteries in the middle Byzantine world. The interpretation of monastic fortifications can be elusive as the ‘wall’ and ‘tower’ have a different set of meanings within monasticism. He will deploy a landscape archaeological approach, contextualizing each fortified monastery within the context of the wider entire settlement pattern. Fortifications can be built for straightforward defense purposes in times of instability, but they can also be built for other purposes, such as a claim of authority, as scholars of early western tower castles have argued.
Email twolfor2@nd.edu
Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow
Anne Le, Ph.D.
Dr. Le holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. She works closely with the Institute’s staff, especially its director of undergraduate studies and engagement, in the Institute’s outreach and engagement efforts directed at local schools as well as friends, alumni, and undergraduate majors and minors. Dr. Le's research focuses on representations of religious conversion in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Old French literature to explore questions about identity, community, and belonging.
Email ale4@nd.edu
Appointed Research Visitors
The Medieval Institute attracts scholars from around the world who wish to visit and use the Institute’s extensive library collection for their research.
Manolis Ulbricht, Ph.D.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow
During his time at the Medieval Institute (Fall 2023–Spring 2025), Dr. Ulbricht will study Qur’anic and anti-Islamic texts from the Byzantine world. His project, "Documenta Coranica Byzantina (DoCoByz). Byzantino-Islamica in the Age of Digital Humanities," will trace the exact transmission lines of the Greek translation(s) of the Qur’an (Testimonia Coranica Christiana) in order to document their reception and (re)use within Greek-Orthodox polemics (Episteme Islamica Orthodoxa), and to distill diachronically the common topoi and stereotypes of anti-Islamic argumentations and synchronously comparing them with the pre-13th century Latin polemics (Traditio Islamica Medievalis). The project is based on a genuine interdisciplinary approach: it combines Greek, Latin, and Arabic philologies with historical, paleographical and theological work as well as methods of digital humanities.
Email manolis.ulbricht@nd.edu
Mekhola Gomes, Ph.D.
Professor Gomes is Assistant Professor at Amhurt College. During her year at the institute as a visiting scholar, she will be working on her book manuscript "Rule through Blood: Property and Power in Medieval India."
Email mgomes2@nd.edu