So how does a prairie boy fall in love and devote his life to ecclesiastical latin letters and the prose chronicles of twelfth-century monks? Hard to say, but it seemed inevitable at the time.

 

It started with die-cast knights and Lego castles. It only got worse after spending several years of my childhood in Germany - surrounded by medieval villages, ruined castles and awe-inspiring cathedrals. In short order, I found myself in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba, soaking up mediævalia from ex-missionaries, Byzantinists and the new historicists in the English department. But choice encounters with a charismatic Victorianist and a committed researcher of Latin American history drew me into the worlds of nineteenth-century égouts, class identity and cultural power dynamics. 

 

And so, of course, I ended up entranced by the monks of an obscure Burgundian monastery and their powerful charismatic (if also somewhat problematic) abbot Peter. He liked to write, I liked to read. It was a marriage made in heaven. So I sat down to read. A few years later I stopped reading and started to write. And I haven’t stopped finding things to write about.

My research interests revolve around the lives and literary production of the monks of Cluny. The abbey of Cluny, located near Macon in Burgundy, was founded in the early tenth century as –what could be argued to be– a traditionally Carolingian form of monastery. Its life revolved around the cultivation of virtue and spiritual prestige through an unparalleled program of prayers, liturgical celebration and ritualized comportment. 

 

The monastery of Cluny was arguably one of the most prominent and powerful religious institutions from its founding to its dissolution during the French Revolution. Its first abbots were widely accepted as capable leaders in life and powerful saints after their death. By the twelfth century, the abbots of Cluny oversaw a vast network of houses spreading from England to the Holy Land. Under their tutelage, Cluny produced untold monks esteemed for their holiness and often chosen to become bishops and popes. Its abbots were advisers to kings and acted as architects of Church doctrine. The monks of Cluny did not withdraw from the secular world, but sought to engage with it.

 

I have focused my research on three authors writing within the Cluniac mileu: the twelfth-century abbot of Cluny –Peter the Venerable– and two of his monks –Peter of Poitiers and Richard of Poitiers (also known as Richard of Cluny). Through the writing of these three monks, I seek to explore the world view, the power relationships and the forms of emotion disseminated from Cluny. 

 

I find that the advice of the twelfth-century schoolmaster Peter Abelard to his son continues to resonate today as a model for research and teaching. Peter admonishes his son to look for a teacher like himself, who privileges rational exposition over  showy presentation, and who encourages critical dialogue over authoritative monologue. Today’s students, I believe, should demand no less of their teachers.

 

As an educator and historian, I see my role as emancipatory, as opening spaces for critical inquiry, as using the past to help understand the present. By teaching history, I help my students learn about themselves and their place in society, to see the interconnectedness of past, present, and future, to recognize what binds us to others, and to see what makes us distinctive both as individuals and as societies.  To see such patterns of connection and distinction, students need to know something about their world:  what brought them to this point in time and what it means to be part of this particular society. 

 

For me, the teaching of history has to incorporate an appreciation that indeterminacy exists and has to make this evident in the classroom. Why do I choose to teach some histories and not others? What are the ramifications of my choices? From my research and in my teaching, I have been made very aware that an understanding of history is never without bias. And a knowledge of history and one’s own history is a form of power. The use of this power must liberate and provoke students. 

 

Since the selection of material taught and the areas of focus are, in essence, political decisions, I have to encourage alternate perspectives to my own, I have to be reflexive about the power dynamics operating within the classroom and I have to be critical of my own self-positioning. I view the classroom as a democratic space where everyone’s voices must be mutually respected and where opinions –no matter how tentative or distinct– should be encouraged to grow. I strongly believe that as an educator, I am equally involved in the process of learning and my students are equally involved in the process of teaching. 

 

Students should be encouraged to evaluate critically their own experiences, their forms of communicating, and their thinking in light of historical discourses. By learning to engage in the historians’ trade, i.e. the critical analysis of primary and secondary texts, and to express their insights clearly, concisely and rationally, students can develop informed perspectives, which engage multiple points of view, but are coherent and defensible. And I want students to think about the class as a community a) where they can learn as much from each other as about an Other, and b) where they can develop relationships, skills and knowledges which allow them to establish themselves academically and politically in the broader community.