UVM History Department Blog

The UVM Department of History is excited to welcome our esteemed colleague, Mr. Calvin Trillin, to campus for his public lecture “The Writing Life” on Wednesday September 27 (5:00, Ira Allan Chapel).  It is true that Mr. Trillin’s brilliant credentials as a historian are often, and inexplicably, overlooked.  But within the field he is revered for such classics as “An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing” (which he figured, wrongly, would be “an easy task compared to, say, a medievalist whose specialty requires him to poke around in thirteenth-century Spain”), “A Very Short History of the Fish Taco,” and of course the methodological tour de force “An Attempt to Compile the Definitive History of Didee’s Restaurant” (“I might have given up the history game right there if it hadn’t been for the baked duck and dirty rice”).  Like all great historians, if somewhat more literally than most, Mr. Trillin evinces an inexhaustible appetite for the evidence.  The talk should be over in time for dinner.

The Department of History, along with Holocaust Studies, Romance Languages, English, Religion, Bailey-Howe Special Collections, and the CAS Dean’s Office, is delighted to sponsor the 2017-2018 College of Arts and Sciences Medieval Studies Lecture Series.

The Fall lineup welcomes to campus two stellar scholars:

First, on Wednesday October 4, Andrea Tarnowski (Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College) will give a lecture entitled “On the Long Road of Learning with Christine de Pizan,” at 5:00, in Special Collections of Bailey-Howe Library.

Then, on Thursday November 9, Miri Rubin (Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London), will lecture on “The Child Murder Accusation against the Jews of Norwich: Meaning, Memory and Legacy,” at 7:00 PM in Memorial Lounge (Waterman Bldg). This talk is sponsored by the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies.

Both talks are free and open to the public.  For more information, e-mail Professor Sean Field at sean.field@uvm.edu.

Not even a foot of snow can stop a great medieval historian!  Dr. Jacques Dalarun arrived safe and sound from Paris, and the UVM Department of History is proud to present his public lecture today at 5:00 as scheduled!

Monday, February 13, 2017 at 5:00 PM – 338 Waterman Building, Memorial Lounge

Dr. Jacques Dalarun (IRHT/CNRS, Paris) will give a public lecture on “The ‘Rediscovered Francis of Assisi’ in the Rediscovered Life by Thomas of Celano.” The lecture is sponsored by the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office, and is part of the College of Arts and Sciences 2016-2017 Medieval Studies Lecture Series.  For more information, please contact Prof. Sean Field at sean.field@uvm.edu