In this episode, producer Loren Cantrell chats with Stanford professor Fiona Griffiths about her latest contribution to Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, in which Griffiths revisits the famously complex relationship between Heloise and Abelard. Griffiths situates Heloise’s striking language within the shifting landscape of 12th-century debates on clerical marriage and reform, offering a powerful reinterpretation of one of the Middle Ages’ most challenging couples.

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

How might the study of multiculturalism in the Middle Ages differ across historical period and academic specialization? In this episode, Fordham University master’s students Kristian Powell and Sean Maldonado discuss their experiences studying the early medieval period. They reflect on conversations from their coursework, the importance of professorial/institutional support, and what excites them most about the diversity of the early medieval period.

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

How do pandemics happen? In this episode, historians of medieval medicine Monica H. Green, Winston Black, and Lucy Barnhouse talk with Will Beattie about the genesis of a new open-access teaching module on the Black Death. Our understanding of the late medieval pandemic has been transformed not only because of advances in the biological sciences, but also because historians have recently discovered—or newly interpreted—written records from the 13th and 14th centuries. For the first time, the Islamicate world’s experience is centered in the narrative, allowing entirely new perspectives on the Afro-Eurasian pandemic to be revealed.

Access the History of the 21st Century module here!

For more information, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.