UMKC conference to celebrate Medieval nuns’ literary contributions

The letter to Eadburga expressed thanks for the previous goods sent from Minster-in-Thanet and asked for yet another favor — a special copy of the Epistles of St. Peter.

 Along with Bishop Boniface’s “thank you” was a quantity of gold, to be pounded flat or powdered by the clever fingers of the monastic scribes, for gilding the hand-written book’s Latin letters. When trying to convert the “carnally minded” Germans in the early 700s A.D., it paid to be a little flashy. 

 This Anglo-Saxon bishop/missionary to the pagan tribes was not writing to a house of Kentish monks, however. Eadburga was an abbess, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of nuns involved in copying books throughout the Middle Ages. In our collective cultural misconception, fed by clever advertising (remember the “It’s a miracle” Xerox ad?), cartoons and movies (“The Name of the Rose”), this job is largely thought of as a monk’s — read, “man’s.”

 Yet cloistered women also underpinned European civilization, noted medievalist Virginia Blanton, “another part of the past which, when I was in school, did not appear in our history books.”

Click here to read this article from The Kansas City Star

Click here to visit the Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe II website

How universities helped transform the medieval world

We like to think that we have moved on from the Middle Ages, but do universities from that period have something to teach us about the role of government in education? This column thinks so.

How does a new form of knowledge enter the public sphere and what are the consequences for economic activity? Today, thousands of students are pursuing university degrees in biotechnologies and computer sciences in order to enter the high-tech labour force or to become entrepreneurs. Do the institutions that train them generate economic growth? What roles can governments play in establishing educational institutions and supporting investments in the new forms of human capital they produce?

These are not new issues: around 100 years ago, the modern American research university – often supported by public funds – was taking shape, training scientists and engineers who were employed in the burgeoning industries of the early 20th century (Goldin and Katz 1999). Perhaps surprisingly, by going even further back in history – all the way to medieval Europe – we can learn important lessons about the relationships among public policy, educational institutions, educational content, and economic development.

Click here to read this article from VOX

Tunis reopens ancient Islamic college to counter radicals

Watched by residents of the old quarter of Tunis, a court official stepped forward and unlocked the huge wooden doors. From the gloom within, volunteers began to bring out stools and chairs that had gathered dust and cobwebs for half a century.

The school at Tunisia's 8th-century Zaitouna Mosque, one of the world's leading centers of Islamic learning, was closed by independence leader and secularist strongman Habib Bourguiba in 1964 as part of an effort to curb the influence of religion. Its ancient university was merged with the state's Tunis University.

The college reopened its ancient doors to students on Monday, part of a drive by religious scholars and activists to revive Zaitouna's moderate brand of Islam, which once dominated North Africa, and counter the spread of more radical views.

Click here to read this article from Reuters