This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
Caroline Walker Bynum’s research focuses on medieval culture and religion
Caroline Walker Bynum, Professor of Western European Middle Ages at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, will discuss the saving power attributed to Christ’s blood 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 in Oechsle Hall room 224.
Bynum’s lecture, “Wonderful Blood: Art, Piety, and Theology in Northern Europe in the Later Middle Ages,” will center on her latest book, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (2007). The book is a study of blood piety in fifteenth-century Northern Germany within the context of all of Europe. The lecture is sponsored by the department of religious studies, under the auspices of the Lyman Coleman Fund.
According to Eric Ziolkowski, Dana Professor and head of religious studies, Bynum will engage the audience in careful examination of several works of medieval art transmitted via PowerPoint. Ziolkowski speaks of Bynum as “a scholar’s scholar.”
“She is one of the most influential living specialists in medieval culture and religion,” he says. “Not only is she a prolific author, but she is also one of those rare scholars who has changed the way we examine and understand history, especially its religious dimensions. Having revealed so much in her earlier writings about the medieval understanding of the body (both the body in and of itself, as well as in its relation to the soul), in her lecture she will illuminate the distinctive brand of piety associated with Christ’s blood in the late Middle Ages. Lafayette’s students, faculty, and other attendees are sure to find this lecture a memorable experience.”
Bynum has published numerous articles, which have won prizes from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and the Renaissance Society of America. Awards she has received for her books include Governor’s Award of the State of Washington, the Philip Schaff prize of the American Society of Church History, the Trilling Prize for the Best Book by a Columbia Faculty Member and the Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Analytical-Descriptive Category from the American Academy of Religion.
She has served in a variety of academic positions at a multitude of organizations and institutions, including Columbia, Princeton and Harvard, and has received numerous grants and fellowships for scholarly as well as teaching excellence. She also holds honorary degrees from eleven American and foreign universities. In January, l999, she became University Professor at Columbia, the first woman to hold this title at Columbia, and later in l999 she was named Jefferson Lecturer, the highest honor the Federal Government awards to a scholar in the Humanities. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.