Visiting Scholars
Mellon Faculty Fellowship in Medieval Studies
Mireille Pardon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History, Berea College
Professor Pardon's project examines how people thought about homicide in fifteenth-century Flanders, and how changes in the perception of killing over time impacted judicial practice. Medieval reconciliation procedures, a feud-like understanding of violence, and an emphasis on pecuniary penalties declined as spectacular, bodily punishment took center stage. Drawing on the wealth of archival resources for late medieval Flemish cities, her work explores slow cultural shifts in concepts of honor, masculinity, and the common good to give a new perspective on the birth of early modern punitive justice.
Email mpardon@nd.edu
Byzantine Postdoctoral Fellow
Mark Pawlowski, Ph.D.
Dr. Pawlowski holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. His work explores the daily life and means of the more humble residents of the Byzantine countryside through the close study of secular architecture, landscape, and the written record. He focuses on both the social and economic differentiation among villagers as well as their agency in the countryside. During the fellowship year he will complete his book manuscript which aims to demonstrate the means that villagers had to affect their built environment and Byzantium at large.
Email mpawlow2@nd.edu
Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow
Annie Killian, OP, Ph.D.
Dr. Killian holds a Ph.D. from Yale University. 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.
Email akillian@nd.edu
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.
Wiebke-Marie Stock, Ph.D.
Guest Research Assistant Professor, University of Bonn, Germany
Professor Stock is working on a project on Plotinus’ rationalization of Platonic demonology. Read more about Dr. Stock's work.
Email wstock@nd.edu
Anne-Marie Wolf, Ph.D.
Guest Professor, University of Maine–Farmington
Professor Wolf is working on a book on approaches to peace in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim contexts in the Middle Ages. The focus is on the Mediterranean basin, although she includes discussion of examples from other places as well. It is written for a general audience and is organized into thematic chapters (nature and peace, rulers and peace, family and household, etc.).
Email anne.marie.wolf@maine.edu
Andrew Faulkner, Ph.D.
Guest Professor, University of Waterloo
Professor Faulkner's research at Notre Dame will focus on late antique and Byzantine poetry. His main research project will be a study of the poetic version of the martyrdom of Saints Justina and Cyprian by the 5th-century empress Eudocia, an understudied but important late antique poem. His research will closely examine the text and result in a detailed philological commentary on the poem.
Email afaulkner@uwaterloo.ca
Miguel Brugarolas Brufau, Ph.D.
Profesor Agregado de Teología Sistemática, Universidad de Navarra
Professor Brugarolas will study Gregory of Nyssa and how he articulates the affirmation of divine transcendence and human ascent towards God.The notionof divine transcendence deeply marks Gregory’s thought regarding the concatenation of all realms of reality, the understanding of human language about God, and the ontological status of creation, as well as his developments in Christology, spiritual doctrine, and eschatology.
Email mbrugarolas@unav.es
Kristin Skottki, Ph.D.
Junior Professor for Medieval History, Universität Bayreuth
During her time at Notre Dame, Skottki will be working on her book project, Sternberg 1492: An Exemplary Study in Late Medieval Christian-Jewish Relations, Christian Piety and the Relationship between History and Memory (working title). In this project, Skottki is using an exemplary case study—the host desecration trial and the subsequent Holy Blood pilgrimage in this small town in Mecklenburg since 1492—to a) contextualize the material evidence of late medieval practices of piety ('material religion’); b) take up discussions about Critical Race Theory and Antisemitism to understand the violence against Jews involved; and c) apply intersectional and ‘global’ historical perspectives to understand the power relations involved.
Email kristin.skottki@uni-bayreuth.de
Sokratis-Athanasios Kiosoglou, M.A.
Ph.D. Student at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
After receiving a BA in Philosophy and Classics and an MA in the History of Philosophy at the University of Athens, Sokratis-Athanasios Kiosoglou is now working on a Ph.D. thesis at the KU Leuven (Belgium), focusing on Proclus’ geometrical method of presentation and its reception up until the Renaissance. Towering figures such as Boethius, Nicholas of Methone and Marsilio Ficino are involved in an attempt to reconstruct the reception and appreciation of Proclus’ application of the method of geometers to metaphysics. In particular, this Ph.D. research is conducted within the context of the project “Axiomatic-deductive method and more geometrico presentation in Proclus”, which is carried out by Prof. Jan Opsomer and Prof. Pieter d’ Hoine and funded by the KU Leuven, Internal Research Funds. The Workshop on Ancient Philosophy has invited Kiosoglou to be a visiting graduate student at Notre Dame in the fall of 2021 to work with Prof. Denis Robichaud and Prof. Gretchen Reydams-Schils, in the context of its international collaboration with the KU Leuven.
Email sokratisathanasios.kiosoglou@kuleuven.be
Francesco Mazzo, B.A.
Master's student in Philosophy, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna
Francesco Mazzo is completing a first degree Master in Philosophy at Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. His Bachelor’s thesis was focused on Niccolò Machiavelli and Giordano Bruno. Between May and July 2021 he was a dissertation fellow at the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento in Florence, where he carried out research for his Master’s thesis on the political thought of Marsilio Ficino under the supervision of Prof. Michele Ciliberto. As a visiting graduate student at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 2021, Mazzo will be working with Prof. Denis Robichaud and will write his Master’s thesis (entitled Marsilio Ficino: Philosopher and Political Thinker / Ficino politico. Leggi, demoni e cicli astrologici). His project highlights Ficino’s political/educative role, and his reflections on the figure of the legislator. It also focuses on demons (seen as intermediaries between God and men) and on the political repercussions of astrological cycles. It is based on research into Ficino’s works, as well as Ficino’s introductions and commentaries on Plato.