Professor Miri Rubin
Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History
email: m.e.rubin@qmul.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7882 8369
Office: Arts 2.33
Miri Rubin discovered History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she completed studies towards an MA in 1980 with a dissertation on The Oriental Politics of Charles of Anjou. The desire to research the social and religious history of Europe led her to Cambridge, where under the supervision of Christopher Brooke she completed a PhD, Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge, in 1984.
She was awarded a Research Fellowship at Girton College later that year, and then a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in 1986. A Visiting Membership of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton followed this in 1988/89. During that year Miri Rubin was appointed as CUF Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University and Fellow of Pembroke College there.
In 1998 she was promoted to a Readership in Medieval History, and in 2000 was appointed to a Chair in Early Modern History at the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London. Between 2002 and 2005 Miri Rubin held a Major Research Award from the Leverhulme Foundation. Between 2004 and 2007 she has served as a Councillor of the Royal Historical society and in 2007 she was elected as Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
Research interests:
Miri Rubin's interests cover a wide range of social relations within the predominantly religious cultures of Europe between 1100-1600. She has found anthropological approaches and an understanding of textuality and visual imagery to be invaluable tools for the appreciation of the complex meanings of ritual, gender, power and community life.
Publications:
Her published work began with Charity and community in medieval Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), a study of charitable activity within contexts of religious sentiment and social observation and experience. Her next book Corpus Christi: the eucharist in late medieval culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) unravelled the emergence of the eucharist at the centre of Christian identity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the many ways in which the eucharistic world was adopted, adapted, rejected or questioned in subsequent centuries all over Europe. In Gentile tales: the narratives assault in late medieval Jews (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999) she explored the emergence of a new narrative which associated Jews with violence towards the eucharist, and its enactment within in regions and communities of late medieval Europe. A publication on the cultural history of the figure of the Virgin Mary, Mary – Mother of God: a History was published by Penguin (UK) and Yale University Press (US) in 2008.
More recently Miri Rubin edited European Religious Cultures: Essays Offered to Christopher Brooke on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. European Religious Cultures is a set of stimulating essays first written as offerings for Christopher Brooke on his eightieth birthday. They are now gathered for the enjoyment of all those interested in the history of religious cultures. They address a variety of practices in religious life – among them pilgrimage and the urban cult of saints, the monastic performance of liturgy, the choice to enter the priesthood – and situate them within the life-cycles and social relations of medieval Europeans. The authors have been inspired by Christopher Brooke’s own interests over a long and fruitful career. They also look forward to new and exciting areas in medieval studies. To purchase try clicking on book image..
International collaboration is an important aspect of Miri Rubin's work. She participates regularly in international conferences and has organised meetings such as the 1994 colloquium on the work of Jacques Le Goff, which resulted in the volume The work of Jacques Le Goff and the challenges of medieval history (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997); the project on Religion and the State at the Centre for History and Economics at Cambridge, since 2001 with Professor Ira Katznelson of Columbia University; the conference Charisma and Religious Authority with Kate Jansen, which will result in a 2008 volume, published by Brepols; and the colloquium Medieval Religious Cultures, in June 2007, which will appear as a special issue of Historical Research in 2008. She has held Visiting Professorships at New York University, University of Iowa, University of Connecticut, and enjoys meeting scholars – junior and senior alike.
Examples of research funding:
Miri Rubin has been awarded an AHRC Network Grant for the project 'Youth, Violence and Cult: the Case of William of Norwich and its Aftermath' which will support the historical investigation of a unique and momentous case: the birth in Norwich in 1144 of the ritual murder accusation against Jews and the related cult of a child martyr. The network will foster collaboration between its members through an active Network Website, and in three meetings (one in Norwich and two in London) during the academic year 2009/10. Some of the intellectual output will be collected into a volume.
Undergraduate teaching:
Miri Rubin is keen on introducing undergraduates to medieval and early modern history. With Professor Kate Lowe she has devised a First Year course, Old Worlds, New Worlds: Europe 1400-1600, aimed at inducting students through thematic lectures and classes into the unfamiliar pre-modern European world, set when appropriate, within a global context. For undergraduates interested in pursuing study in these periods she offers European Religious Cultures, 1100-1600 a more advanced course that uses translated written sources and images.
Postgraduate teaching:
Professor Rubin is active in training PhD students towards independent research.
At MA level Miri Rubin teaches the options Understanding Religious Historically 1 & 2, and offers the Sources and Methods course that introduces future researchers to the wide range of possibilities in the study of pre-modern religious cultures.