Professor of History and Religion

12 Oct 2016

LISA M. BITEL

Professor of History and Religion

University of Southern California

3520 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, CA 90089-0034

Tel: 213-821-2150

Email: bitelusc.edu

EDUCATION

Harvard University, Ph.D., History (1987)

Harvard University, A.M., History (1983)

University College, Dublin, National University of Ireland (1981)

Smith College, A.B., History (1980)

EMPLOYMENT

Professor of History, University of Southern California (2001-)

and Religion (2008-)

and Gender Studies, (2002-2010)

Chair, Gender Studies, University of Southern California (2007-10)

Professor, History and Women’s Studies, University of Kansas (2000-2001)

Director, Women’s Studies Program, University of Kansas (1999-2001)

Associate Professor, History and Women's Studies (1995-2000)

Assistant Professor, History and Women's Studies (1990-95)

Lecturer on History and Literature, Harvard University (1987-89, 1991-92)

HONORS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

National and International:

Fellow (elected 2016), Medieval Academy of America

ACLS Fellowship (2010-11)

Borchard Foundation Grant (2008-09)

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2000-01)

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1994-95)

Irish American Cultural Institute Faculty Fellowship (1993)

American Philosophical Society Grant-in-Aid (1992)

National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections Grant (1991)

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies (1986)

ITT International Fellowship to Ireland (1980-81)

Regional and Local:

Senior Fellow, USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities (2016-18)

Senior Fellow, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, USC (2006-14)

Fellow, Center for Excellence in Research, USC (2008-10)

Fellow, Center for Interdisciplinary Research, USC (2003-2007)

James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Grant, USC (2003)

Institute for Multimedia Literacy Fellow, USC (2006, 2002)

Keeler Intra-University Professorship, University of Kansas (1998)

Hall Center for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, University of Kansas, (1997)

New Faculty Award, University of Kansas (1994)

Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University (1985-86)

GSAS Merit Fellowship, Harvard University (1984-85)

Jens Aubrey Westengard Fellowship, Harvard University (1983)

Phi Beta Kappa (1980)

RESEARCH

Books - Monographs:

Our Lady of the Rock: Vision and Pilgrimage in the Mojave Desert. With photographs by Matt Gainer. (Cornell University Press, Feb 2015.)

Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare

Christianized Barbarian Europe (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Women in Early Medieval Europe, 300-1100 (Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Land of Women: Tales of Sex and Gender from Early Ireland (Cornell University

Press, 1996; paperback edition, 1998)

Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Early

Ireland (Cornell University Press, 1990; paperback edition, 1994; Cork

University Press imprint, 1994; History Book Club, 1994)

Edited Books and Volumes:

Sacred Voices, Sacred Vision (by June Mecham.) Coedited with Alison

Beach and Constance Berman. (Brepols, Nov, 2014.)

Visualizing the Invisible: Visionary Technologies in Religious and

Cultural Contexts, special issue of journal Visual Resources

(2009.)

Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives, co-ed.

with Felice Lifshitz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007/8).

In Progress:

Unseen: The Christianization of the European Supernatural. Monograph.

Articles, Chapters, Essays

“Seeing the Invisible God: Discerning the Supernatural in the History of Christian Visionary Experience,” in Supernatural Religion, ed. Jeffrey Kripal (Cengage, 2017).

“Scripture in the Sky: Marian Photography at Our Lady of the Rock,” Material

Religion (Winter 2015.)

“Gender and the Initial Christianization of Europe,” in Judith Bennet and Ruth Karras, eds., Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2013).

“Material Environment of Christian Visions in Early Medieval Europe,” in Colum Hourihane, ed., Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams and Insights in Medieval Art and History (Index of Christian Art, Princeton Univ Press, 2010).

“Scenes from a Cult in the Making: Lady of the Rock, 2008,” with images by Matt

Gainer, also in Hourihane, Looking Beyond (2010).

“Looking the Wrong Way: Authenticity and Proof of Religious Vision,” with

images by Matt Gainer, in Bitel, ed., Visualizing the Invisible: Visionary

Technologies in Religious and Cultural Contexts, (2009): 69-92.

“Professing Religion and Gender in Medieval Europe,” in Bitel and Lifshitz, Gender and Christianity, (2008).

“Period Trouble: The Impossibility of Feminist History,” in Celia Chazelle and Felice Lifshitz, eds., Paradigms, Methods, and Periodization in Late Ancient and Early Medieval Studies: A Reconsideration (Brill, 2008), 299-328.

“Tools and Scripts for Cursing in Early and Medieval Ireland,” Memoirs of the

American Academy in Rome 51/52 (2006/7): 5-27.

“Ekphrasis at Kildare: The Imaginative Architecture of a Seventh-Century

Hagiographer,” Speculum 79 (July 2004), 605-627.

“Hail Brigit!: Gender, Authority, and Worship in Early Ireland," in Alan Hayes

and Diane Urqhuart, eds., Irish Women’s History (Irish Academic Press,

2003), 1-14.

“Body of a Saint, Story of a Goddess: Origins of the Brigidine Tradition,” Textual

Practice 16 (2002), 209-228.

“Landscape, Gender, and Ethnogenesis in Pre-(Norman) Invasion Ireland,” in

Scenes and Season: Landscapes in the Middle Ages, ed. Michael Wolfe

and John M. Howe (University of Florida Press, 2002).

“Saints and Angry Neighbors: The Politics of Cursing in the Irish Saints’ Lives,” in Sharon Farmer and Barbara Rosenwein, eds., Monks and Nuns, Saints

and Outcasts (Cornell University Press, 2000).

"Women in Early Medieval Northern Europe," in Susan Stuard et al., eds.,

Becoming Visible (3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 105-28.

"Tír inna mBan: Domestic Space and the Frontiers of Gender in Early Ireland,"

in Hagith Sivan, ed., Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, the Early

Byzantine Empire, and the Early Middle Ages (Variorum, 1996), 242-55.

"Domestic Economies and Gender Ideology in Early Ireland," in Samuel Cohn

and Steven Epstein, eds., Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Living:

Essays in Honor of David Herlihy (Ann Arbor, 1996).

"`Do Not Marry the Fat Short One': The Early Irish Wisdom on Women,"

Journal of Women's History 6/7 (Winter/Spring 1995), 137-59.

"`Conceived in Sins, Born in Delights': Stories of Procreation from Early

Ireland," Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1992), 181-202.

"In Visu Noctis: Dreams in European Hagiography and Histories, 450-900,"

History of Religions (1991), 39-59.

"Women's Monastic Enclosures in Early Ireland: A Study of Female Spirituality

and Male Monastic Mentalities" Journal of Medieval History 12 (1986)

“Women's donations to the churches in early Ireland,” Journal of the Royal

Society of Antiquairies of Ireland 114 (1984), 5-23.

Articles forthcoming:

“Irish Monasticism,” in Cambridge Handbook of Medieval Monasticism ed. Alison Beach and Isabelle Cochelin (forthcoming 2016).

“Secrets of the Síd,” in Small Gods, ed. Michael Ostling (Palgrave, 2017.)

Minor/popular publications:

“We Remain: Polin, Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” Los Angeles Review of

Books (Mar 31 2015.)

“Some Important Things About Brent Plate’s History of Religion in 5-1/2 Objects,” Religion and Culture Web Forum, Martin Marty Center, Univ. of Chicago (Mar 2014.)

"Can You Tell Me Who The Villains Are?": Rock and Religion, Irish-Style.” Religion Dispatches (Nov 2011.)

“Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why

Now? Religion Dispatches (Mar 2011.)

“Virgins for Sale,” Journal of Women's History 19, no. 2 (2007): 170-177

“Feminist Theory,” “Gender,” “Ireland,” in Susan Stuard et al., eds., Women and

Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Taylor and Francis, 2006.)

“Early Medieval Monasticism,” in James S. Donnelly, Jr. et al, eds., Encyclopedia of

Ireland. Volume One: Nations of the World (New York, 2003.)

"The Sorceress" as an Interpretive Tool in Medieval History Classes,” Medieval Feminist Newsletter Subsidia Series 1 (2000) (Medieval Women in Film): 52-56.

"From Goddesses to Anabaptists: Christian and Pagan Women in Premodern Europe", Journal of Women's History 10/3 (1998) 192-203.

“Ascetic Superstars (Irish nuns and monks),” Christian History 17:4 (Nov 1998), 22-23.

“Cambridge" and "Oxford" in Franco Cardini and M. T. Fumagalli Beonio-Brocchieri, eds., Antiche Università d'Europa: Storia e personaggi degli Atenei nel Medio Evo (Milan, 1991), 62-77.

Reviews:

Michael J. Enright, Prophecy and Kingship in Adomnán's “Life of Saint Columba,” in Speculum 90 (Aug 2015): 242-244.

Sarah Sheehan and Ann Dooley, Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland, in TMR

(Aug 2015).

Michael Bailey, Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, in TMR (9 Feb 2015).

Giselle de Nie, Poetics of Wonder: Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the

Late Antique Latin World in TMR (14 May 2014).

Tómas Ó Carragáin, Churches in Early Medieval Ireland: Architecture, Ritual and

Memory in Catholic Historical Review 98 (2012): 781-783.

Megan McLaughlin, Sex, gender, and episcopal authority in an age of reform, 1000-

1122 in American Historical Review (Dec 2011): 1557-58.

Malcolm Lambert, Christians and Pagans: The Conversion of Britain from Alban to

Bede in Church History 80: 3 (2011): 642-44.

David Wyatt, Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland in Speculum 86

(2011): 285-287.

Daniel McCarthy, The Irish Annals: Their Genesis, Evolution and History in

Speculum 85 (2010): 432-434.

N. J. Higham, A Frontier Landscape: The North West in the Middle Ages in TMR

(6 Oct 2010)

"No Alliance by Marriage ... or Amour": Women in the Two Medieval Irelands

(review of Gillian Kenny, Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Women in Ireland, c.

1170-1540) on H-Albion (http://www.h-net.org/~albion/) (Nov 2008).

Robin Chapman Stacey, Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland

in Law and History Review 26:3 (2008).

Catherine Thom, Early Irish Monasticism: An Understanding of Its Cultural Roots,

in Journal of Religion 88:2 (2008).

A. Mulder-Bakker and J. Wogan-Browne, Household, Women, and

Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in TMR (7 Sept 2009).

Ailbhe Mac Samhradháin, ed., The Island of Saint Patrick in Catholic Historical

Review 92: 1 (2006): 105-106.

Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith, eds. Gender in the Early Medieval World:

East and West, 300-900 in Histoire sociale. Social history 39 (2006):

515-16.

Jacques LeGoff, The Birth of Europe in Journal of British Studies 45 (2006), 139-40.

James Lydon, The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages in Speculum 80 (2005): 923.

Kathleen Biddick, The Typological Imaginary, in TMR (Jan 2005)

Dianne Hall, Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland, c. 1140-1540, in Catholic

Historical Review 90: 1 (2004): 104-106.

Michael Richter and Jean-Michel Picard, ed., Ogma in Speculum 79 (2004): 264-

265.

Ó Riain, Pádraig, ed. Four Irish Martyrologies in Catholic Historical Review 90: 1

(2004): 106-108.

Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, Early Irish History and Chronology in TMR (Apr 2003)

Christina Harrington. Women in a Celtic Church: Ireland 450-1150, in Catholic

Historical Review 89: 4 (October 2003): 749-751.

Sarah Foot, Veiled Women, in Catholic Historical Review 88:2 (2002): 329-331.

Susan Leigh Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland 900-1500, in Speculum 77:2 (2001), 531.

John Kitchen, Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in

Merovingian Hagiography in Religious Studies Review 26, 4 (Oct 2000): 385-386.

Mary Dockray-Miller, Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England, in

TMR (Jan 2005)

Brendan Smith, ed., Britain and Ireland 900-1300: Insular Reponses to

Medieval European Change in Speculum 76: 3 (2001), 797-798.

Brendan Smith, Colonisation and Conquest in Medieval Ireland: The English in Louth, 1170-1330 in Speculum 76: 3 (2001), 795-796.

Seán Duffy, Ireland in the Middle Ages, in TMR (Mar 2002).

Joanne Findon. A Woman’s Words: Emer and Female Speech in the Ulster Cycle, in

CSANA Newsletter, Spring 2000.

Catherine Mooney, Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, in

Catholic Historical Review 86 (2000), 497-499.

Diane Watt, ed., Medieval Women in Their Communities (Toronto, 1998), in The

Historian 62 (Fall 1999): 202-204.

Jo Ann McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millenia (Harvard,

1996), in Biography 21.1 (Winter 1998).

Doris Edel, ed., Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in

the Early Middle Ages, (Blackrock, Ireland, 1995) Catholic Historical Review

83: 4 (Oct 1997), 754-55.

Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland, 400-1200 (London, 1995) and Michael

Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition (New York, 1995), in

Speculum 72 (Oct 1997): 1217- 18.

Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society and Literature

(Grand Rapids,MI, 1995), in The Historian 60: 2 (Winter, 1998), 427-28.

Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Princteon, 1994) and Patricia Cox

Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity (1995), in Journal of the History of the

Behavioral Sciences 33 (1997), 198-200.

Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization in Catholic Historical Review 83

(Apr 1997), 299-300.

N. B. Aitchison, Armagh and the Royal Centres in Catholic Historical Review 82

(Jul. 1996), 512-14.

Nerys Patterson, Cattle-Lords and Clansmen (Notre Dame, 1995), in Speculum 71

(1996), 188- 201.

Robin Chapman Stacey, The Road to Judgment: From Custom to Court in Medieval

Ireland and Wales (Philadelphia, 1994), in Speculum 70 (1995), 680-83.

John Ryan, Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Development (1931, repr. 1992)

and Brendan Lehane, Early Celtic Christianity (1961, repr. 1994), in Peritia:

Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 9 (1995).

Harold Mytum, The Origins of Early Christian Ireland (London and New York, 1992), in Gnomon 66:6 (1994), 569-70.

Art Cosgrove, ed., New History of Ireland, vol. 2: Medieval Ireland, 1169-1534

(Oxford, 1993), in Speculum 69: 4 (Oct., 1994), 1147-49.

Liam de Paor, St. Patrick's World: the Christian Culture of Ireland's Apostolic Age

(Notre Dame, 1993), in Catholic Historical Review 80: 3 (Jul 1994), 567-69

Huw Pryce, Native Law and the Church in Medieval Wales (Oxford, 1993), in The

Historian 56: 3 (Spring, 1994), 606-607.

Emma Mason, St. Wulfstan of Worcester, c. 1008-1095 (Oxford, 1990), Speculum

68: 1 (Jan 1993), 209-211.

Peter Harbison, Pilgrimage in Ireland: The Monuments and the People (Syracuse University, 1992), in Catholic Historical Review 78: 4 (Oct 1992), 625-26.

Richard Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints' Lives: An Introduction to "Vitae Sanctorum

Hiberniae" (Oxford, 1991), in Catholic Historical Review 78: 2 (Apr 1992),

278-80.

Walter Horn, Jenny White Marshall, and Grellan D. Rourke et al., The Forgotten

Hermitage of Skellig Michael (Berkeley, 1991), in Catholic Historical

Review 77: 3 (Jul 1991), 499-500.

Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London and New York, 1990), in

Envoi 3: 1 (Spr 1991), 221-27.

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin, 1988), in Speculum 66: 1 (Jan 1991), 180-82.

Lynette Olson, Early Monasteries in Cornwall (Suffolk, 1989) in CSANA Newsletter, 1990.

Presentations

International, National, Invited

‘The Problem with Pagans in Early Ireland,” Melbourne University Irish Studies Center (Mar 2016)