DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Medieval and Early Modern European History

Thematic Field(s):  Gender and Sexuality History; Religious History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Medieval Sexuality, Gender, and Spirituality

Biography

Dyan Elliott (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1989) is a medieval historian who has published widely on medieval gender and religious history. At present, she is working on a book length analysis of the medieval clergy and sexual scandal. She has also recently completed a historical novel entitled A Hole in the Heavens (forthcoming with Bagwyn press – a subsidiary of Arizona State University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies). 

Publications

• The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200-1500. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
• Proving Woman: Female Mysticism and Inquisitional Practice in Late Medieval Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.
• Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
• Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Teaching Interests

I accept students who are engaged with many aspects of the cultural history of the high and later Middle Ages. My most recent graduates are Anne Koenig (PhD, 2013; presently Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Florida) and Melissa Vise (PhD, 2015; presently Visiting Assistant Professor in Italian Studies at New York University). Anne’s dissertation was entitled “Out of Their Minds: Madness, Medicine and Society in late Medieval Germany”;  Melissa’s dissertation was entitled "The Threat of the Tongue: Illicit Speech in Late Medieval Italy (1250-1450)."

Undergraduate Courses

• The Early Middle Ages.
• The High Middle Ages.
• The Medieval Misfit.
• Medieval Sexuality.
• Medieval Women.
• Saints and Sinners in the Middle Ages.

Recent Awards and Honors

• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Research Fellowship, 2021.
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 2020.
• ACLS Fellowship, September 2016- September 2017 .
• National Humanities Center Fellowship, 2012-13.
• Elected fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, March 2010.