Luke Ritter, Ph.D.
Luke Ritter, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of American History
Department of History & Political Science
lukeritter@nmhu.edu
About:
I believe that historical inquiry provides a crucial perspective on today’s greatest social concerns. Knowing our past can properly orient us towards the future. History thus provides wisdom – that is, the ability to identify that which we should fear. Americans need to understand their own history, more now than ever.
I received my Ph.D. in American History from Saint Louis University in 2014 and immediately accepted a lecturer position at Troy University in Troy, Alabama, where I taught courses in U.S. History for six years. I have also taught in Salalah, Oman, Nanjing and Chengdu, China. Happily, I joined the other outstanding faculty here at NMHU in Fall 2020. My book with Fordham University Press, Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West (2021), is now available. I am currently editing a collection of scholarly essays, titled American Conspiracies: An Interdisciplinary Volume on the Structure of Conspiratorial Beliefs in the U.S., which finally puts leading scholars from various fields in conversation with one another to determine the structure of American conspiratorial beliefs; the factors that have given rise to popular conspiracy beliefs across time and place; and the political and social functions popular conspiracy theories have historically served. I also serve as the Treasurer of the Las Vegas New Mexico Chess Club, which meets every Saturday at Traveler’s Café from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Field of Study:
Immigration, nativism, and religion in the nineteenth-century American West
Courses:
U.S. History to 1865, His 1110
U.S. History since 1865, His 1120
Civil War and Reconstruction, His 4120/5120
The American Presidency 4140/5140
American Conspiracies 4350/5350
History of Religion in the U.S. 4350/5350
Feature:
Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West (New York: Fordham University Press, October 2020).
Why have Americans expressed concern about immigration at some times but not at others? In pursuit of an answer, this book examines America’s first nativist movement, which responded to the rapid influx of 4.2 million immigrants between 1840 and 1860 and culminated in the dramatic rise of the National American Party. As previous studies have focused on the coasts, historians have not yet completely explained why westerners joined the ranks of the National American, or “Know Nothing,” Party or why the nation’s bloodiest anti-immigrant riots erupted in western cities—namely Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. In focusing on the antebellum West, Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis illuminates the cultural, economic, and political issues that originally motivated American nativism and explains how it ultimately shaped the political relationship between church and state. In six detailed chapters, Ritter explains how unprecedented immigration from Europe and rapid westward expansion reignited fears of Catholicism as a corrosive force. He presents new research on the inner sanctums of the secretive Order of Know-Nothings and provides original data on immigration, crime, and poverty in the urban West. Ritter argues that the country’s first bout of political nativism actually renewed Americans’ commitment to church-state separation. Native-born Americans compelled Catholics and immigrants, who might have otherwise shared an affinity for monarchism, to accept American-style democracy. Catholics and immigrants forced Americans to adopt a more inclusive definition of religious freedom. This study offers valuable insight into the history of nativism in U.S. politics and sheds light on present-day concerns about immigration, particularly the role of anti-Islamic appeals in recent elections.
Publications
Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2021).
“Women’s Environmental Activism and the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey,” Left in the Midwest: Building Progressive Social Movements in 1960s–70s St. Louis, eds. Benjamin Looker & Amanda L. Izzo (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, Forthcoming spring 2023), 40 pages.
“Pope’s Day and the Language of Popery in Eighteenth-Century New England,” Journal of Religious History 46, 1 (Wiley-Blackwell, March 2022): 195-219.
“The King James Bible as Nationalist School Curriculum amid Immigration to the American West,” American Nineteenth Century History 21, 2 (April 2020): 1-39.
“Immigration, Crime, and the Economic Origins of Political Nativism in the Antebellum West,” Journal of American Ethnic History 39, 2 (Feb. 2020): 62-92.
“Mothers Against the Bomb: The Baby Tooth Survey and the Nuclear Test Ban Movement in St. Louis, 1954-1969,” Missouri Historical Review 112, 2 (Jan. 2018): 107-138.
“The American Revolution on the Periphery of Empires: Don Bernardo de Galvez and the Spanish-American Alliance, 1763-1783,” Journal of Early American History 7, 2 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, July 2017): 177-201.
“Boltonlands: John Francis Bannon and Borderlands History,” Journal of the West 55, 3 (ABC-CLIO, Fall 2016): 3-10.
“Friedrich Weyerhӓuser: The Timber King and the Transformation of the American Lumber Industry,” Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, Vol. 3, Giles R. Hoyt, ed. (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, May 2015)
“The Discriminating Priority of Integration: Open Housing Activism in St. Louis County, 1968-1977,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 106, 2 (Summer 2013): 224-242.
“The St. Louis ‘Know-Nothing’ Riot of 1854: Political Violence and the Rise of the Irish,” Gateway Heritage Magazine 32 (Nov. 2012): 10-19.
“Sunday Regulation and the Formation of German American Identity,” Missouri Historical Review 107, 1 (Oct. 2012): 23-40.
“Anatomy, Grave-Robbing, and Spiritualism in Antebellum St. Louis,” The Confluence Magazine 3, 2 (Aug. 2012): 32-44.
Book Reviews
America’s Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest by Stephen Kissel (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021). Published in American Catholic Studies (Forthcoming Fall 2022).
The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation by Zachary Schrag (New York: Pegasus Books, 2021). Published in Civil War Book Review 24, 2 (Spring 2022).
Against Popery: Britain, Empire, and Anti-Catholicism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020). Published in the Journal of Religious History (Forthcoming Spring 2022).
The Oxford Handbook of Jonathan Edwards by Douglas Sweeney and Jan Stievermann. Published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History 73, 1 (January 2022): 194-195.
West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire by Kevin Waite. Published in H-Civil War, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, H-Net.org (Sept. 2021).
Commonwealth of Compromise: Civil War Commemoration in Missouri by Amy Laurel Fluker. Published in H-Civil War, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, H-Net.org (June 2021).
Bernardo de Galvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution by Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia. Published in Bulletin of Spanish Studies 96 (February 2020).
Patriotic Murder: A World War I Hate Crime for Uncle Sam by Peter Stehman. Published in Missouri Historical Review 113, 4 (July 2019): 292-293. *featured on the back cover of the 2019 edition
Houses Divided: Evangelical Schisms and the Crisis of the Union in Missouri by Lucas P. Volkman. Published in the Journal of Southern History 85, 2 (May 2019): 450-452.
Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy by Hidetaka Hirota. Published in the Journal of American Ethnic History 37, 3 (Spring 2018): 116-117. *featured on the back cover of the 2019 paperback edition
To Govern the Devil in Hell: The Political Crisis in Territorial Kansas by Pearl T. Ponce. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Published in American Nineteenth Century History 18, 3 (Oct. 2017): 301-303.
Abolitionizing Missouri: German Immigrants and Racial Ideology in Nineteenth-Century America by Kristen Layne Anderson. Published in American Nineteenth Century History 18, 2 (July 2017): 188-190.
Unequal Freedoms: Ethnicity, Race, and White Supremacy in Civil War-Era Charleston by Jeff Strickland. Published in South Carolina Historical Magazine 117, 3 (July 2016): 265-267.
Inspiration and Innovation: Religion in the American West by Todd M. Kerstetter. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. Published in Southwestern Historical Quarterly 119, 4 (April 2016): 431-432.
The Nativist Movement in America: Religious Conflict in the Nineteenth Century by Katie Oxx. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2013. Published in American Nineteenth Century History 15, 3 (Dec. 2014): 350-351.
German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era by Alison Clark Efford. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Published in Ohio Valley History 13, 4 (Winter 2013): 90-92.
Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South by Andrew H. M. Stern. University of Alabama Press, 2013. Published in Ohio Valley History 13, 2 (Summer 2013): 84-85.
Public History
Featured Interview in Nuclear Fallout in the U.S., the third part of a documentary series directed by Ito Hideaki, premiering internationally March 2023.
Kohlenberg-Towne Lecture, “Inventing Immigration Crises in the U.S.: Past and Present,” Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, Forthcoming Oct. 6, 2022.
American History Forum Lecture, “The Challenge of Writing History in this Political Environment,” Saint Louis University, Forthcoming Oct. 7, 2022.
Featured Interview, “Life, the Universe, and Everything: How We Study Religion,” Psychosocial Distancing, Anchor.fm, June 14, 2022
Public Lecture, “Inventing Immigration Crisis in America: Past and Present,” Speaker Series, Missouri State Archives, March 17, 2022
Featured Interview, “Conspiracy Theories and American History,” Psychosocial Distancing, Anchor.fm, Dec. 15, 2021
Featured Author Interview, H-Civil War, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, H-Net.org
Featured Interview, The Bean Pot, Apple Podcasts, Dec. 6, 2019
Keynote Speaker, “Was Ulysses S. Grant a Nativist?” Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, Nov. 23, 2019
“St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey,” Missouri Encyclopedia (State Historical Society of Missouri, 2019)
Featured Presenter, “Islam and Immigration Crisis in the U.S.: What History Teaches Us,” Tedx Talks, Troy University, Nov. 5, 2017
“The Baby Tooth Survey,” History Happens Here, Official Blog of the Missouri History Museum (Nov. 2017)
American History Forum Lecture, “St. Louis’s Nuclear Women: The H-Bomb and the Baby Tooth Survey,” jointly sponsored by the Missouri Historical Society, the Missouri History Museum, and Saint Louis University, Nov. 21, 2016
Featured Interview in Urban Trinity: The Story of Catholic Philadelphia, Produced by Sam Katz and Katie Oxx, premiered on 6ABC in Philadelphia September 2015
Exhibitions and Research Consultant, Missouri History Museum, May 20-Aug. 20, 2013
(I researched and wrote a total of 24 museum labels for the Missouri History Museum’s 2014 exhibit commemorating the 250th anniversary of St. Louis, as well as 24 web entries for the companion website.)
“Big Mound,” Here’s History, Radio Broadcast on KDHX 88.1 FM, St. Louis, Aug. 2013
“Marie Therese Bourgeois Chouteau,” Here’s History, Radio Broadcast on KDHX 88.1 FM, St. Louis, Aug. 2013
“Hunting for History in an Ever-Changing City,” History Happens Here, Official Blog of the Missouri History Museum (Aug. 2013)
Awards
The Mellon Foundation’s Sustainable History Monograph Pilot program sponsored the additional publication, digitization, and advertising of Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West, 2020
2019 winner of the Mary C. Neth Prize, recognizing “Mothers Against the Bomb: The Baby Tooth Survey and the Nuclear Test Ban Movement in St. Louis, 1954-1969” as the best article on women and gender issues appearing in the preceding two volumes of the Missouri Historical Review
2018 winner of the Missouri Historical Review Article Award, recognizing “Mothers Against the Bomb” as the article best contributing to an understanding of Missouri history in the most recent volume of the journal
2018 recipient of the William E. Foley Research Fellowship to defray expenses incurred when visiting the Missouri State Archives for my project, “Immigrants and Crime in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest”
2016 winner of the Environment in Missouri History Fellowship, State Historical Society of Missouri, Center for Missouri Studies, which carries a stipend for the completion of a scholarly article to be submitted to the Missouri Historical Review
Research Grant, Transatlantic Program of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany through funds of the European Recovery Program of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, June 17-21, 2014: Research trip to the Minnesota Historical Society in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Thomas P. Neill Award for Best Dissertation in the History Department, Saint Louis University, May 2014
2013 winner of the Missouri Historical Review Article Award, recognizing “Sunday Regulation and the Formation of German American Identity in St. Louis, 1840-1860” as the article best contributing to an understanding of Missouri history in the most recent volume of the journal
Filson Fellowship, Filson Historical Society, March 2013: Research trip to the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky
Steven J Williams, Ph.D.
Steven J Williams, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Department of History & Political Science
sjwilliams@nmhu.edu
About:
I came to the discipline of History through a rather circuitous route. In high school I developed a passionate interest in American history from the Gilded Age through World War II. However, loathing the “names and dates” approach that was typical in my classes there, I totally avoided any and all History as an undergraduate at Rutgers College; instead I majored in Philosophy and, because of the number of courses I had taken and the number of films I saw, effectively minored in Cinema. The interest in Cinema continued for a year or so after graduation with my B.A. But that petered out as I realized that there was a huge gap in my education: History. So I undertook an extensive, multi-year personal reading program in the discipline, with my interest eventually focusing on the Middle Ages. It was that interest that led me to Northwestern University for a Ph.D. in Medieval History, where I studied under Robert E. Lerner.
One might say that I wear two professional hats here at NMHU: one as a teacher, the other as a historian. The one is as important as the other, and each has enriched me immeasurably, with my teaching responsibility making me a much better historian and my scholarly work making me a much better teacher.
My professional specialty is high and late medieval intellectual and cultural history, with most, but certainly not all, of my time spent working on the thirteenth century. You can see my scholarly activity on my CV, which can be found by clicking on my website link below.
In my capacity as a teacher, I am the Europeanist on staff, with a responsibility for offerings in European history from the time of ancient civilization to the present. In addition, I regularly teach courses on research methods and historiography at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Field of Study: (primarily) thirteenth-century intellectual history (including the history of science); early universities; Church history; religious history (including the new mendicant orders & Inquisition), cultural history/mentalités, & manuscript studies/codicology
Courses
HIST 1165 The Western World
HIST 3010 Research Methods
HIST 3210 The Ancient World
HIST 3210 Medieval Europe
HIST 3250 Modern Europe to 1815
HIST 3260 Modern Europe since 1815
HIST 4800 Historiography
HIST 4350/5350 The Renaissance
HIST 4350/5350 The Crusades
HIST 4350/5350 World War I
HIST 4540/5540 History Through Film. World War II
HIST 6150 Contemporary Historical Thought
HIST/POLS 6200 Research Methods
Publications: Books
The Secret of Secrets. The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Reviews:
The Medieval Review (online), 23 December 2003.
English Historical Review 119 (2004): 1385-1386.
Bulletin Codicologique 2004: 266*-267*.
Parergon 22 (2005): 262-264.
Studi Medievali 47 (2006): 722-733.
Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80 (2006): 578-579.
Speculum 81 (2007): 494-495.
Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 54 (2007): 600-609.
Articles
“The Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets: Encyclopedia or Book of Knowledge?” Books of Knowledge in Late Medieval Europe – Circulation and Reception of Popular Texts. Ed. Pavlína Cermanová & Václav Žůrek, 11-34. Brepols: Turnhout, 2021.
“The Secret of Secrets as a Mirror of Princes: A Cautionary Tale.” A Companion to Mirrors of Princes Literature. Ed. Stéphane Péquignot & Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, 374-400. Brill: Leiden, forthcoming.
“Some Observations on the Scholarly Reception of Physiognomy in the Thirteenth & Early Fourteenth Century: Success, and the Limits of Success.” The Body as a Mirror of the Soul. Physiognomy from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Ed. Pieter de Leemans & Lisa Devriese, 57-91. Leuven: University Press Leuven, forthcoming.
“Tracking Two Textual Traditions: The Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets and the Alexander Legend.” Trajectoires européennes du ‘Secretum secretorum’ du Pseudo-Aristote (XIIIe-XVIe siècle. Ed. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, et al., 27-54. Brepols: Turnhout, 2015.
“Like Father, Like Son: The Life & Reign of Manfred, King of Sicily.” Bartholomew of Messina and Cultural Life at the Court of King Manfred of Sicily. Ed. Pieter De Leemans, 1-29. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014.
“Aristotle in the Medieval Classroom: Students, Teaching, and Educational Change in the Schools of Paris in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” The Classics in the Classroom: The Role of Ancient Texts in the Medieval and Renaissance Arts Curriculum as Revealed by Surviving Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Ed. Juanita Ruys & John Ward, 223-243. Turnhout: Brepols.
“Roger Bacon in Context: Empiricism in the High Middle Ages.” ‘Expertus sum’: l’expérience par les sens en philosophie naturelle médiévale. Ed. Thomas Bénatouïl & Isabelle Draelants, 123-144. Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011.
“The Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum as a Didactic Text.” What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. Ed. Juanita Ruys, 41-57. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008.
“Public Stage and Private Space: The Court as a Venue for the Discussion, Demonstration, and Display of Science and Technology During the Later Middle Ages.” Micrologus. Natura, scienze e società medievali 16 (2008), I saperi nelle corti (XII-XVI s.): 459-486.
“Quodlibetal Disputations,” “The Rise of the Universities,” “Robert Grosseteste,” “Roger Bacon,” “Translations of Aristotle,” “William of Auxerre.” The New Westminster Dictionary of Church History: the Early, Medieval, and Reformation Eras. Ed. Robert Benedetto, et al. Louisville-London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
“Esotericism, Marvels, and the Medieval Aristotle.” Micrologus. Natura, scienze e società medievali 14 (2006), Il Segreto: 171-191.
“Reflections on the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum as an Astrological Text.” Micrologus. Natura, scienze e società medievali 12 (2004), Il sole e la Luna: 407-434.
“Giving Advice and Taking It: The Reception by Rulers of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum as a speculum principis.” Consilium. Teorie e pratiche del consigliare nella cultura medievale, ed. C. Casagrande, et al., 139-180. Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004.
“The Vernacular Tradition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets in the Middle Ages: Translations, Manuscripts, Readers.” Filosofia in volgare nel Medioevo. Ed. Nadia Bray & Loris Sturlese, 451-482. Louvain-la-Neuve: Féderation Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 2003.
“Philip of Tripoli’s Translation of the Secretum Secretorum Viewed Within the Context of Intellectual Activity in the Crusader Levant.” L’Occident et le Proche-Orient au temps des croisades: traductions et contacts scientifiques entre 1000 et 1300. Ed. Isabelle Draelants, et al., 79-94. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
“Roger Bacon and the Secret of Secrets.” Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett, 365-393. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998.
“Repenser l’intention et l’effet des décrets de 1231 du pape Grégoire IX sur l’étude des libri naturales d’Aristote à l’Université de Paris.” In L’enseignement de la philosophie au XIIIe siècle. Autour du << Guide de l’étudiant >> du ms. Ripoll 109, ed. Claude Lafleur, 139-163. Turnhout: Brepols, 1997.
“Scholastic Awareness of Aristotelian Spuria in the High Middle Ages.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58 (1995): 29-51.
“Roger Bacon and his Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum.” Speculum 69 (1994): 57-73. [also reprinted in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, vol. 108 (Detroit: Gale Research].
“Vincent of Beauvais’ Handling of Spuria in the Speculum maius.” Vincent of Beauvais Newsletter 19 (1994): 14-21.
“The Early Circulation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum in the West: the Papal and Imperial Courts.” Micrologus. Natura, scienze e società medievali 2 (1994), Le scienze alla corte di Federico II: 127-144. Also translated into Italian in Federico II e le scienze, 459-474. Palermo: Selerio, 1994.
“Addendum,” with Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, to “Ruggero Bacone, autore del De retardatione accidentium senectutis ?” Studi Medievali 28 (1987): 727-728.
Book Reviews
Keith Busby. The French Works of Jofroi de Waterford. A Critical Edition. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. The Medieval Review, TMR 21.10.34 (31 October 2021), at tmrl@indiana.edu/.
Lorée, Denis, ed. Pseudo-Aristote, Le secret des secrets traduction du XVe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2017. Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018): 1159-1160.
Gorochov, Nathalie. Naissance de l’université. Les écoles de Paris d’Innocent IIIe à Thomas d’Aquin (v. 1200-v. 1245). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012. Medioevo Latino 34 (2012).
Stürner, Wolfgang. Federico II e l’apogeo dell’impero, edizione italiana a cura di Andrea Antonio Verardi, presentazione di Ortensio Zecchino. Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2009. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2010. [Cf. the review of the original German edition below.]
Anna Akasoy, et al., eds. Astro-Medicine. Astrology and Medicine, East and West. Firenze: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2008. In Bulletin of the History of Medicine 84 (2010): 120-121.
Julien Véronèse. L’Ars notoria au Moyen Age. Introduction et édition critique. Firenze: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2009: 253*-254*.
Richard Bodeüs, ed. Aristote, Catégories. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2002: 147*-148*.
Siân Echard and Gernot R. Wieland, ed. Anglo-Latin and its Heritage. Essays in Honour of A. G. Rigg on his 64th Birthday. Turnhout: Brepols, 2001. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2002: 7*-8*.
Elsbeth Acampora-Michel, ed. Liber de pomo. Buch von Apfel. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, 2001. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2002: 70*.
Wolfgang Stürner. Friedrich II., vol. 1-2. Primus Verlag: Darmstadt, 1997-2000. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2002: 125*.
Pieter Beullens and Fernand Bossier, ed. Aristoteles Latinus, vol. XXVII2.I.1, De historia animalium. Translatio Guillelmi de Morbeka. Pars prima: Lib. I-IV. E.J. Brill: Leiden, 2000. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2001: 161*.
Walter Kolle and August Nitschke, ed. Die Chronik des Saba Malaspina (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XXXV). Hahnsche Buchhandlung: Hannover, 1999. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2000: 27*.
Edoardo D’Angelo, ed. Falcone di Benevento, Chronicon Beneventanum. Città e feudi nell’Italia dei Normani. SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo: Firenze, 1998. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2000: 44*.
Carlos Steel, et al., ed. Aristotle’s Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. University Press: Leuven, 1999. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2000: 7*-8*.
Edith Sylla and Michael McVaugh, ed. Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science. E. J. Brill: Leiden, 1997. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 2000: 125*-126*.
Charles Burnett, ed. Adelard of Bath. Conversations with his Nephew. On the Same and the Different, Questions on Natural Science and On Birds. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998. In Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 43 (2000): 282-283.
Federico II e le Nuove Culture. Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1995. In Bulletin Codicologique (Scriptorium) 1997: 40*-41*.
Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars & the Cross in the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. In The Historian 58 (1996): 440-441.
Conference Papers and Presentations
“Beyond the Hyperbole: The Reception of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets as a Book of Knowledge in the Later Middle Ages” (Keynote Address). Books of Knowledge & Their Reception: Circulation of Widespread Texts in Late Medieval Europe. Centre for Medieval Studies, The Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences, Charles University, Prague, The Czech Republic, October 18, 2018.
“Some Observations on the Scholarly Reception of Physiognomy in the Thirteenth & Early Fourteenth Century: Success, and the Limits of Success.” The Body as the Mirror of the Soul: Physiognomy from Antiquity to the Renaissance, DeWulf-Mansion Center for Ancient, Medieval, & Renaissance Philosophy, Katholeike Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), 9 November 2016.
“Imagining the Gestation of a Medieval Text: Philip of Tripoli’s Translation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets.” The Past, Present, & Future of Medieval & Renaissance Texts, Rocky Mountain Medieval & Renaissance Association Annual Meeting, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (USA), 17 June 2016.
“The Birth & Future of the University.” Guest Lecture Series, Westfield State University (MA), 18 March 2014.
“Roger Bacon in Context: Empiricism in the High Middle Ages.” Colloque international, “Expertus sum: l’expérience par les sens en philosophie naturelle,” Université de Nancy, 5-7 February 2008.
“Was Frederick II an Unbeliever?” Refreshment of Scholars. Symposium in Honor of Robert E. Lerner, Peter B. Ritzma Professor of History, Northwestern University, Evanston IL, 31 May 2008.
“Le Secretum secretorum et les sciences occultes au Moyen Age.” Séminaire 2006-2007, Magie, astrologie, divination, alchimie: Sciences occultes d’Orient et d’Occident au Moyen Age, Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 7 February 2007.
“Getting Aristotle into the Classroom: Defining the Core Curriculum at the University of Paris ca. 1200-1255.” The Classics in the Classroom: Manuscript, Incunable, Cinquecentine Relicts and Pedagogical Practice in the European Classroom (1000-1600), University of Sydney, 28 July 2006.
“Public Stage and Private Space: The Court as a Venue for the Discussion, Demonstration, and Display of Science and Technology During the Later Middle Ages.” Les savoirs à la cour 1250-1550, Université de Lausanne, 17 November 2004.
“Esotericism, Marvels, and the Medieval Aristotle.” Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino (SISMEL), Il segreto nel Medio Evo: Potere, Scienza e Cultura, Università degli Studi-Lecce, 25 October 2002.
“The Vernacular Tradition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets in the Middle Ages: Translations, Manuscripts, Readers.” Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (SISPM), La filosofia in volgare, Università degli Studi-Lecce, 28 September 2002.
“Reflections on the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum as an Astrological Text.” Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medio Evo Latino (SISMEL), Il sole e la luna nel Medio Evo: teorie, immagini, simboli, Vicenza, 29 September 2001.
“Giving Advice and Taking It: The Reception by Rulers of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum as a speculum principis.” Convegno Internazionale, Consilium – Teorie e pratiche del consigliare nella cultura medievale, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, 15 December 2000.
“Philip of Tripoli’s Translation of the Secretum Secretorum Viewed Within the Context of Intellectual Activity in the Crusader Levant.” Colloque d’histoire des sciences, L’Occident et le Proche-Orient au temps des croisades: traductions et contacts scientifiques, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 24 March 1997.
“Reconsidering the Intent and Effect of Pope Gregory IX’s Decrees of 1231 Concerning the Study of Aristotle’s libri naturales at the University of Paris.” American Society of Church History, American Historical Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 9 January 1994.
“Frederick II and Aristotelian Philosophy.” Twenty-Ninth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 7 May 1994.
“The Textual Sophistication of High Medieval Scholars.” Midwest Medieval History Conference, Purdue University, 7 November 1992.
“The Early Circulation of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum in the West: the Papal and Imperial Courts.” Second International Seminar on Frederick II, Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily, 21 September 1990.
Professional Activities and Associations
Medieval Academy of America.
Centre international de Codicologie (CIC)/Bulletin Codicologique, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium.
Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino/ Medioevo Latino.
Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale.