This reading group supplements the programming of the Medieval Colloquium, which began in fall 2009 and gathers a larger group of faculty and students to discuss current scholarship. To receive email announcements of Medieval Colloquium and other St. Louis-area Medieval Studies events, please contact Julie Singer.
The Reading Group in Medieval Clerical Culture offers an informal, interdisciplinary venue for faculty, students, and community members to discuss recent and ongoing research into medieval clerics and their cultural production. Some of the questions of particular interest to the conveners include: how to understand the difference (and points of contact) between “clerical culture” and “lay culture”; the relationship between clerical discourse and scientific, philosophical, or political discourses; the institutions, beliefs, texts, and practices of clerical culture; how clerical culture produced particular understandings of gender and sexuality; how clerical culture influenced literary production; cross-cultural discussions of Muslim and Christian clerical practices; and clerics’ evolving role in the formation of intellectual communities.