Collaboratives

The Center for Premodern Studies hosts a wide variety of research collaboratives according to the scholarly interests of students and faculty. The Center aims to foster interdisciplinary collaborations across the university campus and with regional university affiliates.

Innovative courses are an important part of research collaboratives for the Center. For example, in the spring semester of 2016, professors Michael Gaudio and JB Shank co-taught “Art and Science in the Time of the ‘Scientific Revolution’” at the University of Minnesota and Utrecht University. Students from both universities met virtually each week and were able to make week-long exchanges to each other’s universities. Meetings at local museums, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, were a significant benefit to students. The course was able to also bring in several guest lecturers such as Sven Dupre, Tony Beentjes, Wijnand Mijnhardt, Jane Taylor, and Claudia Swan.

In the fall of 2016, the Center hosted a six-part lecture series, “The Earth Unmoored: Reading Nature & Scripture in the Time of Galileo” in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Roman Catholic Church placing the works of Copernicus on the Index of Prohibited books. Guest lecturers included Eileen Reeves (Princeton University), Stefania Tutino (UCLA), Nick Wilding (Georgia State University), and Christopher Graney (Jefferson Community & Technical College). Ted Davis (Messiah College) will present the final portion of the series in January, 2017. The series is sponsored by the University of St. Thomas Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, the Center for Public Thought, and the Philosophy Department with additional support from the University of Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, Program in Religious Studies, the Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and MacLaurinCSF.

Also in the fall of 2016, the Center co-sponsored a series of events about Byzantine history with the Institute for Advanced Study and the medieval studies program. Lecturers included Vlada Stankovic (University of Belgrade), Anthony Kaldellis (Ohio State University), Claudia Witt (University of Vienna), and Alain Touwaide (Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions).

In Fall 2020, the Center collaborated with the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine to host their Works-in-Progress series.