top of page
IMG_3579_edited.jpg

    Welcome!

     

    I'm Term Professor of Philosophy at Barnard College at Columbia University (2022-2025)

    and emerita professor of philosophy at Calvin College,

    specializing in medieval philosophy and the philosophy of gender. 

    For the 23-24 academic year, I'm on medical leave recovering from meningitis and resulting brain injury, and writing about my experiences on Substack in the

    Brain Damage Diaries.

     

    Much of my research challenges the idea that women didn't do philosophy in the Middle Ages by focusing on medieval contemplative philosophy, in which they were active participants.

    (For an overview of why I'm doing this and tips for getting past the "but medieval women didn't know how reeeeeead" hurdle, check out this and/or this.) 

    I've also written about Thomas Aquinas on human nature and happiness, Robert Grosseteste's theory of cognition, and the ethics of eating, particularly gendered eating

    (that is, what the social norms are for what and how 'men' and 'women' eat,

    and how that plays out in other areas of life).

    My first book on medieval contemplative philosophy: 

    A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on Self-Knowledge, Reason, Love, Persons, and Immortality

    is out now with Oxford University Press and is also available as an audio book

    (that I got to narrate!)

    You can read more about the project at New Work in Philosophy, or check out this interview I had with Sarah Virgi about medieval communities of contemplative women for IMP: Medieval Philosophy Today.

     

    I also joined Barry Lam for season 5 of Hi-Phi Nation to co-host a three-episode series on 'Philosophical Monsters': Vampires, Zombies, and Cannibals

    CV
    BOOKS
    BOOKS

    A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on Self-Knowledge, Reason, Will, Persons, and Immortality (Oxford University Press, 2022)

     

    New Routledge Major Works collection: Medieval Philosophy (4 vols., est. 1660 pp) (Critical Concepts in Philosophy series, Routledge), editor with Andrew Arlig, 2019))

     

    Thomas Aquinas, The Treatise on Happiness: Summa theologiae IaIIae 1-21, translation, introduction, and commentary with Thomas Williams (Hackett Aquinas Series, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2016)

     

    The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, editor Robert Pasnau, associate editor Christina Van Dyke (2 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; second edition with new material, 2014)

     

    Aquinas’s Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory, and Theological Context, co-authored with Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung and Colleen McCluskey (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009)

    PAPERS
    PAPERS

    MEDIEVAL CONTEMPLATIVE PHILOSOPHY:

    "The Personal Experience of Transcendent Love: Mystics and Contemplatives in the Medieval Christian Tradition" for Love: The History of a Concept, ed. R. Hanley (Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series, Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

    "From Meditation to Contemplation: Broadening the Borders of Philosophy in the 13th-15th Centuries" in Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past: New Reflections in the History of Philosophy, eds. A. Griffioen and M. Backmann (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) 213-229.

    "Transformation via Mystical Experience in the 13th century: Hadewijch, Marguerite d'Oingt, Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Angela of Foligno” in Transformation and the History of Philosophy, eds. G. A. Bruno and J. Vlasits (London: Routledge, 2022), 199-132.

    Lewd, Feeble, and Frail: Humility Formulae, Medieval Women, and Authority” in Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 10 (2022), 1-23.

    The Voice of Reason: Medieval Contemplative Philosophy” in Res Philosophica 99:2 (2022) 169-185. 

    [invited paper for special issue on ‘Theological Dogma and Philosophical Innovation in Medieval Philosophy’]

    Taking the ‘Dis’ out of ‘Disability’: Martyrs, Mothers, and Mystics in the Middle Ages” in Disability in Medieval Christian Philosophy and Theology, ed. S. Williams (New York: Routledge Press, 2020) 203-232.

     

    Medieval Mystics on Persons: What John Locke Didn't Tell You,” for Persons: a History, ed. A. Lolordo (Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series, Oxford University Press, 2019), 123-153.

    The Phenomenology of Immortality,” The History of the Philosophy of Mind.Vol. 2: Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages, ed. M. Cameron. (London: Routledge, 2019), 219-239.

     

    “‘Many Know Much, but Do Not Know Themselves’: Self-Knowledge, Humility, and Perfection in the Medieval Affective Contemplative Tradition in Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics Volume 14,eds. G Klima and A. Hall (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), 89-106.

     

    What has History to do with Philosophy? Insights from the Medieval Contemplative Tradition in Philosophy and the Historical Perspective, ed. M. Van Ackeren, Proceedings of the British Academy, Oxford University Press, 214 (2018) 155-170.

    Self-Knowledge, Abnegation, and Fulfillment in Medieval Mysticism,” Self-Knowledge, ed. U. Renz (Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series, Oxford University Press, 2016) 131-145.

    Mysticism,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, eds. Pasnau and Van Dyke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 720-34.

    THOMAS AQUINAS:

    Thomas Aquinas.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. Ed. Duncan Pritchard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. (http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com)

    I See Dead People: Disembodied Souls and Aquinas’s ‘Two-Person’ Problem,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 2 (2014) 25-45.

     

    Aquinas’s Shiny Happy People: Perfect Happiness and the Limits of Human Nature,” Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 6 (2014) 269-291.

    The End of (Human) Life as We Know It: Thomas Aquinas on Bodies, Persons, and Death,” The Modern Schoolman 89: 3-4 (2012) 243-257 (special issue: “Theological Themes in Medieval Philosophy”).

    Not Properly a Person: the Rational Soul and ‘Thomistic Substance Dualism,’” Faith and Philosophy 26:2 (2009) 186-204.

    Human Identity, Immanent Causal Relations, and the Principle of Non-Repeatability: Thomas Aquinas on the Bodily Resurrection,” Religious Studies 43 (2007) 373-94.

    ROBERT GROSSETESTE:

    The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth: Robert Grosseteste on Universals (and the Posterior Analytics),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48:2 (2010) 153-170.

    A Divinely Aristotelian Theory of Illumination: Robert Grosseteste’s epistemology in his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17:4 (2009) 685-704.

    PHILOSOPHY OF GENDER:

    Eat Y’Self Fitter: Orthorexia, Health, and Gender, Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, eds. A. Barnhill, T. Doggett, M. Budolfson (Oxford University Press, 2017) 553-571.

    Manly Meat and Gendered Eating: Correcting Imbalance and Seeking Virtue,” Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments about the Ethics of Eating, eds. A. Chignell, T. Cuneo, M. Haltemann (New York: Routledge Press, 2016) 39-55.

    Discipline and the Docile Body: Regulating Hungers in the Capitol,” in The Hunger Games and Philosophy, eds. G Dunn and N. Michaud (Wiley, Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, 2012) 250-264.

    Eating as a Gendered Act: Christianity, Feminism, and Reclaiming the Body,” in K. J. Clark (ed.) Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, 2nd Edition (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008).

    TALKS & VIDEOS
    VIDEOS & PODCASTS
    RESOURCES
    in Medieval Contemplative Philosophy
    Resources

    GENERAL, SELF-KNOWLEDGE, REASON, WILL AND LOVE, PERSONS, AND IMMORTALITY

    GENERAL RESOURCES:

    PRIMARY SOURCES IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

     

    Angela of Foligno: Complete Works, trans. Paul Lachance (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993)

     

    Anonymous. The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counselling, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2009)

     

    Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God; The Tree of Life; the Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978)

     

    Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980)

     

    The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, trans. David Staines (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990)

     

    Clare of Assisi. Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, trans. R.J. Armstrong and I.C. Brady (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986)

     

    Christine de Pizan. A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, trans. Charity Cannon Willard (New York: Persea Books, 1989)

     

    ———. The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Richards. (New York: Persea Books, 1982, revised 1998)

     

    Margaret Ebner: Major Works. trans. and ed. Leonard Hindsely (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993)

     

    Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. ed. and trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1981)

     

    Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, edited B McGinn, trans. McGinn, F. Tobin and E. Borgstadt (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986)

     

    The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, trans. Maurice Walshe (New York: The Crossroads Publishing Company, 2010)

     

    Francis of Assisi. Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, trans. R.J. Armstrong. and I.C. Brady (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986)

     

    Gertrude of Helfta: The Herald of Divine Love, trans. and ed. Margaret Winkworth (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993)

     

    Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations, trans. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and James Walsh, S.J. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1978)

     

    Hadewijch: The Complete Works, ed. and trans. Mother Columba Hart (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980)

     

    Julian of Norwich: Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978)

     

    The Showings of Julian of Norwich: A New Translation, trans. Mirabai Starr (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 2013)

     

    The Writings of Margaret of Oingt, Medieval Prioress and Mystic (d. 1310), trans. with an introduction, essay, and notes by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990)

     

    Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans. F.X. Taney, Anne Miller, and C Mary Stallings-Taney (Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 2000)

     

    Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text, trans. Sarah McNamer (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2018)

     

    Mechthild of Hackeborn: The Book of Special Grace, trans. Barbara Newman (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2017)

     

    Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Frank Tobin (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1998)

     

    Marguerite Porete. The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans. E.L. Babinsky (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993) 

     

    Pseudo-Dionisius: the Complete Works, trans. Colm Luiheid (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987)

     

    Richard of St. Victor: The Twelve Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity, trans. Grover Zinn (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1979)

     

    Richard of St. Victor, and Anonymous. The Pursuit of Wisdom and Other Works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing, ed. and trans. James Walsh. (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988)

     

    Richard Rolle. The Fire of Love, trans. Clifton Wolters. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1972)

     

    Richard Rolle: The English Writings, ed. and trans. Rosamund Allen (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988)

     

    John Ruusbroec: The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works, ed. and trans. John A. Wiseman (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985)

    Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. William C. Creasy (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2017)

    Walter Hilton, The Scale (or Ladder) of Perfection, ed. Serenus Cressy

    SECONDARY SOURCES

    Adamson, Peter. Medieval Philosophy: a History of Philosophy without Any Gaps, Volume 4 (Oxford University Press, 2019).

     

    Allen, Prudence. The Concept of Woman. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1997, 2006, and 2006.

     

    Andersen, Elizabeth, Henrike Lähnemann, and Anne Simon, eds. A Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

     

    Bagger, M. Religious Experience, Justification, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

     

    Beckwith, Sarah. Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture, and Society in Late Medieval Writings. London: Routledge, 1993.

     

    Bell, Rudolph. Holy Anorexia. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1985.

     

    Bornstein, Daniel. “Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiography” in Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, edited by D Bornstein and R. Rusconi, trans. Margery Schneider (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 1-27.

     

    Burns, J.H., ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought C. 350-c.1450. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

     

    Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1991.

     

    ———. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

     

    ———. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

     

    ———. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

     

    ———. Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

     

    Caciola, Nancy. Discerning Spirits, Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. 

     

    Cornet, Ineke. The Arnhem Mystical Sermons: Preaching Liturgical Mysticism in the Context of Catholic Reform, Leiden: Brill, 2019.

     

    de Certeau, Michel. La Fable mystique: XVI-XVII siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 1982. 

     

    ———. Heterologies. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.

     

    Fanous, S. and V. Gillespie (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

     

    Flora, Holly. The Devout Belief of the Imagination. The Paris Meditationes Vitae Christi and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy. Disciplina Monastica, volume 6, Turnhout: Brepols, 2009.

     

    Frelick, Nancy, The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Specular Reflections. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016.

     

    Furlong, Monica. Visions & Longings, Medieval Women Mystics, Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2013.

     

    Gellmann, Jerome. Mystical Experience of God, a Philosophical Inquiry. London: Ashgate Publishers, 2001.

     

    ———. (2014), ‘Mysticism’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/mysticism/>.

     

    Grundmann, Herbert. “Die Frauen und die Literatur im Mittelalter: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der Entstehung des Schrifttums in der Volkssprache,” Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte 26 (1936): 129-61.

     

    ———. Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the Historical Foundations of German Mysticism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

     

    Hindsley, Leonard. The Mystics of Engelthal: Writings from a Medieval Monastery. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

     

    Hollywood, Amy. Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

     

    ———. The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite of Porete, and Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

     

    Hollywood, Amy and P. Dailey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

     

    Hugher-Edwards, Mari. Reading Medieval Anchoritism: Ideology and Spiritual Practice. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012.

     

    Hughes, Aaron. The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004. 

     

    Idel, Moshe and Bernard McGinn, eds. Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: An Ecumenical Dialogue. New York: Continuum, 1999.

     

    James, William. Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Gifford Lectures held at Harvard, 1902. 

     

    Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

     

    Karnes, Michelle. Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

     

    Kent, Bonnie. Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995.

     

    Kieckhefer, Richard. “Mysticism and Social Consciousness in the Fourteenth Century,” Revue de l’Universite d’Ottawa 48 (1978) 179-86.

     

    Kobusch, Theo. Die Entdeckung der Person: Metaphysik der Freiheit und modernes Menschenbild. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997.

     

    Largier, Nicholas. “Inner Senses – Outer Senses: The Practice of Emotions in Medieval Mysticism”, in Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, Edited by C. Jaeger and I. Kasten, Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2003, 3-15.

     

    Lerius, Julia. “Hildegard von Bingen on Autonomy” in Women Philosophers on Autonomy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, eds. S. Berges and A. Sinai (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 9-23.

     

    Lerner, Robert. The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

     

    Lewis, Gertrud Jaron. By Women, for Women, about Women: the Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996.

     

    Lolordo, Antonia, ed. Persons: a History. (Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series, Oxford University Press, 2019).

     

    Mancia, Lauren. Emotional Monasticism: Affective piety in the eleventh-century monastery of John of Fécamp. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.

     

    Marin, Juan. “Annihilation and Deification in Beguine Theology and Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls,” in The Harvard Theological Review 103:1 (2010), pp. 89-102.

     

    McGinn, Bernard, ed. Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete. New York: Continuum, 1994.

     

    ———. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300-1500), Vol.4 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2005. 

     

    ———. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism - 1200-1350. Vol. 3 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co, 1998). 

    ———.  Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism: 1350-1550, Vol. 5 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2016.

     

    McNamer, Sarah. 'The Origins of the Meditationes Vitae Christi', Speculum 84 (2009), pp. 905–955.

     

    Mercer, Christia. “Descartes’ Debt to Teresa of Avila, or why we should work on women in the history of philosophy,” Philosophical Studies 174: 10 (2017), pp. 2539-2555.

     

    Mews, Constant and Anna Welch, eds. Poverty and Devotion in Mendicant Cultures 1200-1450. London: Routledge, 2016.

     

    Mooney, Catherine, ed. Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

     

    Moore, R.I. The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe. London: Profile Books, Ltd., 2012.

     

    Morgan, Ben. On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. 

     

    Joan Mueller. The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006.

     

    Neel, Carol. “The Origins of the Beguines” in Signs (14:2), Working Together in the Middle Ages: Perspectives on Women’s Communities, 1989.

     

    Newman, Barbara. From Virile Woman to Woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.

     

    ———. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

     

    ———. “What Does It Mean to Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture” Speculum 80, no. 1 (2005): 1-43.

     

    O’Neill, Eileen and Marcy Lascano, eds. Feminist History of Philosophy: The Recovery and Evaluation of Women’s Philosophical Thought. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2019.

     

    Pike, Nelson. Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.

     

    Poor, Sara. Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Authority. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004

     

    Robinson, Joanne. Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.

     

    Stace, Walter T. Mysticism and Philosophy. London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1960.

     

    Suydam, Mary. “The Touch of Satisfaction: Visions and Religious Experience According to Hadewijch of Antwerp.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12 (Fall 1996) 5-27.

     

    Tóth, Peter and  Dávid Falvay. “New Light on the Date and Authorship of the Meditationes vitae Christi” in Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life, eds. Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) 17-104.

     

    Trinkaus, Charles. ‘In Our Image and Likeness’: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. 2 Vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

     

    Turner, Denys. The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

     

    Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness. Grand Rapids MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1911.

     

    ———. The Essentials of Mysticism and Other Essays. New York: Dutton, 1920. 

     

    Van Dyke, Christina. “‘Many Know Much, but Do Not Know Themselves’: Self-Knowledge, Humility, and Perfection in the Medieval Affective Contemplative Tradition” in Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics Volume 14, eds. G Klima and A. Hall (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 89-106.

     

    ———.  “Mysticism” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. (eds.) R. Pasnau and C. Van Dyke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 720-734.

     

    ———.  “Self-Knowledge, Abnegation, and Fulfillment in Medieval Mysticism,” Self-Knowledge, (ed.), U. Renz, Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series: Oxford University Press, 131-145.

     

    ———. “The Phenomenology of Immortality (1200-1400),” The History of the Philosophy of Mind. Vol. 2: Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages, edited by M. Cameron. (London: Routledge), 219-239.

     

    ———. “What Has History to Do with Philosophy? Insights from the Medieval Contemplative Tradition,” Philosophy and the Historical Perspective, edited by M. Van Ackeren, Proceedings of the British Academy, Oxford University Press, 214 (2018) 155-170.

     

    Van Steenberghen, Fernand. Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 1980.

     

    Wallace, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999

     

    Ward, Jennifer. Women in Medieval Europe 1200-1500, 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 2016.

     

    Winston-Allen, Anne. Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

    Specific Topics: Self-Knowledge, Reason, Will and Love, Persons, Immortality and the Afterlife

    SELF-KNOWLEDGE

    Primary Texts:

    Angela of Foligno, Memorial IX

    Catherine of Siena, Prologue and Chapter 4

    Clare of Assisi, Third Letter to Agnes of Prague, and “Testament of Saint Clare” 

    Hadewijch, Letters 2, 4, 11, 14, 18, 22, and 30

    Julian of Norwich, Showings Chapters 56 and 57 

     

    Margaret of Oingt,

     

    Marguerite Porete, Mirror of Simple Souls, Chapters 43 and 87 

    Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, Books VI and VII 

     

    Meister Eckhart, Counsel Six (in Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense)

    Richard of St. Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs (Benjamin Minor)

     

    Jan Van Ruusbroec, “Spiritual Abandonment and Consolation” and “A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness” 

     

    Meditations on the Life of Christ, Chapter 107 

    Secondary Texts:

    Frelick, Nancy, ed. “Introduction” to The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Specular Reflections. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016.

     

    Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

     

    Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

    Lochrie, Karma. Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.

     

    Marrone, Steven. The Light of Thy Countenance: Science and Knowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, 2 volumes, Leiden: Brill, 2001.

     

    McGinn, Bernard, ed. Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete. New York: Continuum, 1994.

     

    Neel, Carol. “The Origins of the Beguines” in Signs (14:2), Working Together in the Middle Ages: Perspectives on Women’s Communities, 1989.

    Renz, Ursula, ed. Self-Knowledge. Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series, Oxford University Press, 2016.

    Ritchey, Sara. “Spiritual Arborescence: Trees in the Medieval Christian Imagination” in Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality (8:1) 2008, 64-82.

     

    Scott, Karen. “’This is why I have put you among your neighbors’: St. Bernard’s and St. Catherine’s Understanding of the Love of God and Neighbor” in Atti del Simposio Internazionale Cateriniano-Bernardiniano, edited by D. Maffei and P. Nardi (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 1982) 279-94.

    Van Dyke, Christina. “Self-Knowledge, Abnegation, and Fulfillment in Medieval Mysticism,” Self-Knowledge, (ed.), U. Renz, Oxford Philosophical Concepts Series: Oxford University Press, 131-145.

     

    Watson, Nicholas. “Introduction" to The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism. S. Fanous and V. Gillespie (eds.), 1-28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

     

    WILL AND LOVE

    Primary Texts:

    Angela of Foligno, Memorial IX

    The Book of Privy Counseling, Chapters 3 and 4

     

    The Cloud of Unknowing.

     

    Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God; The Tree of Life

     

    Catherine of Siena, Dialogue, Prologue and Chapter 51 

     

    Gertrude of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, Chapter 10 

     

    Hadewijch, Letters 6 and 16

    Julian of Norwich, The ShowingsChapters 42, 43, 44, 55, and 60 

     

    Margaret of Oingt, “Pagina meditationum” 

     

    McNamer, Sarah, trans. Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2018.

     

    Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls

     

    Richard of St. Victor, and Anonymous. Chapter V in The Pursuit of Wisdom and Other Works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing, ed. and trans. James Walsh. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988.

     

    Jan Van Ruusbroec, Spiritual Espousals 62 

     

    Meditations on the Life of Christ, Chapters 13, 50, 58, and 107

    Secondary Texts:

    Bornstein, Daniel. “Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiography” Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, edited by D Bornstein and R. Rusconi, trans. Margery Schneider (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 1-27.

     

    Bynum, Caroline Walker. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

     

    Hollywood, Amy and P. Dailey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

     

    Hugher-Edwards, Mari. Reading Medieval Anchoritism: Ideology and Spiritual Practice, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012

     

    Karnes, Michelle. Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

     

    McGinn, Bernard. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism - 1200-1350. Vol. III of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co, 1998.

     

    McNamer, Sarah. 'The Origins of the Meditationes Vitae Christi ', Speculum 84 (2009), pp. 905–955.

     

    Robertson, Elizabeth. “Medieval Medical Views of Women and Female Spirituality in the Ancrene Wisse and Julian of Norwich’s Showings,” in Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature, eds. L. Lomperis and S. Stanbury. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.

     

    REASON

    Primary Texts:

    Angela of Foligno, Memorial IX 

     

    The Book of Privy CounsellingChapter 8

    The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 63 

     

    Catherine of Siena, Dialogue Chapters 26, 44, 51 and 85

    Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Richards. New York: Persea Books, 1982, revised 1998, pg. 9

     

    Margaret Ebner, Revelations, Leonard Hindsely, trans. and ed. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993, pgs. 100 and 155.

     

    Meister Eckhart, Sermons 70, 71, and 76, and “Sister Catherine Treatise”  in Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher

     

    Hadewijch. Visions 7, 9, and 12, Letters 6, 10 and 18, and Poems 25 and 30 

     

    Julian of Norwich, Showings, Chapter 58 

     

    Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 1 and Chapter 3

     

    Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, Book II 

     

    Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, Chapters 7, 21, 43, 53, 87, and 135 

     

    Richard of St. Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs (Benjamin Minor) Chapters II, IV, XII, XV, and LXXIII-LXXIV 

     

    Johannes Tauler, Sermons 13 and 29

    Secondary Texts:

    Hollywood, Amy and P. Dailey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

     

    McGinn, Bernard. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300-1500), Vol.4 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2005.

     

    McGinn, Bernard, ed. Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete. New York: Continuum, 1994.

    Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.


    Winston-Allen, Anne. Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004

     

    PERSONS

    Primary Texts:

    Angela of Foligno, Memorial

     

    Catherine of Siena, Dialogue,  pgs. 25, 29, 49, 85, 205

    Meister Eckhart, Sermons 70 and 92 in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart

     

    Meister Eckhart, Sermon 76 in Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher

     

    Gertrude of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, Book II 

    Hadewijch, Letters 6, 9, and 14 

     

    Margaret of Oingt, Chapter 2

     

    Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, Book IV

    Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, Chapters 21 and 135 

     

    Jan Van Ruusbroec, Spiritual Espousals Book II, Part 4 

    Johannes Tauler, Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday After the Trinity (V 76) 

    Secondary

    Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1991.

     

    Dales, Richard. The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century, Leiden: Brill, 1995.

     

    Hollywood, Amy and P. Dailey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

     

    Kobusch, Theo. Die Entdeckung der Person: Metaphysik der Freiheit und modernes Menschenbild. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997.

     

    Kristeller, Paul Oskar. “The Dignity of Man” in Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1972, 1-21.

     

    McGinn, Bernard. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300-1500), Vol.4 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2005. 

    Morgan, Ben. On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

     

    Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

     

    Pasnau, Robert. “Medieval Social Epistemology: Scientia for Mere Mortals” in Episteme 7.1 (2010), 23-41.

     

    Shaffern, Robert. Law and Justice from Antiquity to Enlightenment. Lanham, ML: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Ltd., 2009.

     

    Tiereny, Brian. Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and Its Application in England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

     

    Trinkaus, Charles. ‘In Our Image and Likeness’: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought.2 Vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

     

    Van Dyke, Christina. “I See Dead People: Disembodied Souls and Aquinas’s ‘Two-Person’ Problem,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 2, 25-45.

     

    ———.  “Not Properly a Person: the Rational Soul and ‘Thomistic Substance Dualism,’” Faith and Philosophy 26:2,  (2009) 186-204.

     

    IMMORTALITY AND THE AFTERLIFE

    Primary Texts:

    Angela of Foligno. Memorials IV and IX, and Chapter VI 

     

    Catherine of Siena, Dialogue

     

    Meister Eckhart, Counsels 4, 16b, and 23

     

    “The Sister Catherine Treatise” (in Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense

     

    Hadewijch, Letter 9 and Vision 7

     

    Mechtild of Magdeburg, Chapter IV in The Flowing Light of the Godhead

    Marguerite Porete, Chapters 79 and 135 of The Mirror of Simple Souls

    Secondary Texts:

    Bynum, Caroline Walker. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

     

    Dales, Richard. The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century, Leiden: Brill, 1995.

     

    Flora, Holly. The Devout Belief of the Imagination. The Paris Meditationes Vitae Christi and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy. Disciplina Monastica, volume 6, Turnhout: Brepols, 2009.

     

    Gellmann, Jerome. (2014), ‘Mysticism’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/mysticism/>.

     

    Hollywood, Amy and P. Dailey, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

     

    Largier, Nicholas. “Inner Senses – Outer Senses: The Practice of Emotions in Medieval Mysticism”, in Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, Edited by C. Jaeger and I. Kasten, 3-15. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2003.

    McGinn, Bernard. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300-1500), Vol.4 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2005.

    Van Dyke, Christina. “The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth: Robert Grosseteste on Universals (and the Posterior Analytics),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48:2, 153-170.

     

    Van Steenberghen, Fernand. Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 1980.

    CONTACT
    CONTACT INFORMATION

    Christina Van Dyke

    Email:

    cvandyke[at]barnard.edu 

    bottom of page