Reimagining Christendom: Author Joel Anderson in Conversation with Damian Fleming on Iceland’s Bishops and the Roman Church

Date: 15 November 2023
Time: 12:00–1:00 pm ET
Location: Zoom
Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography

Join author and SoFCB Senior Fellow Joel Anderson and interviewer Damian Fleming for a conversation about Anderson’s book Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland’s Bishops into the Roman Church, 1200–1350 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). Following this conversation, the audience will have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session moderated by Holly Borham. This event is part of a series celebrating new books in critical bibliography and is sponsored by Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB).

This event is free and open to the public; however, advanced registration is required. To learn more about this event and to register, click here. 

Joel Anderson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maine. He is a historian of medieval Europe, with broad interests in cultural history, religious history, and the Norse world. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Bates College, and subsequently studied at the University of Oslo, the University of Iceland, and Cornell University, where he completed his Ph.D. His research revolves around issues of communication, imagination, and authority, particularly in the high- and late-medieval church. In his first book, Reimagining Christendom, he examined how clerics on the northern fringes of Europe refashioned and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends.

Damian Fleming is Past President of the SoFCB as well as Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he teaches ancient and medieval literature as well as Latin, and directs the minor in Medieval Studies. He majored in Medieval Studies at Fordham University before pursing his Ph.D. in Early English at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on perceptions of Hebrew among early medieval Christians, especially in the islands of the North Atlantic.

Holly Borham is a Senior Fellow in Rare Book School’s SoFCB. She is Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin.