Caroline Bynum

Caroline Walker Bynum ( born May 10, 1941 in Atlanta ) is an American historian.

Caroline Walker Bynum had Scots- Irish ancestors, as well as from the southern states. Her parents were professors. She attended the Grammar School and the Henry Grady High School (1954-1958) in Atlanta. Bynum initially studied philosophy and literature. She then moved to history. Bynum attended from 1958 to 1960, the Radcliffe College and received a Bachelor (1962 ) at the University of Michigan and a master in 1963 at Harvard University. In 1969 the Ph.D. at Harvard University. At Harvard (1969-1973) and at the Divinity School (1973-1976) followed by the first academic positions. From 1976 to 1988 she taught as an associate professor at the University of Washington. In 1988 she took over the Morris and Alma Schapiro Professor at Columbia University. From 1993 to 1994 she was Dean of the School of General Studies. She was 1996 President of the American Historical Association and President of the Medieval Academy of America, and from 1997 to 1998 president of the Medieval Academy of America. She was appointed University Professor in 1999, the highest award the faculty. She was thus the first woman in Columbia with this official title. Bynum taught from 2003 until her retirement in 2011 at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Her research focuses on the religious and intellectual history of Western Europe from the 12th to the 15th century. Fundamentally have been Bynum's work on the understanding of the body of religious women in medieval times. International recognition was her portrayal Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (1987). For this illustration, she received the 1988 Governor's Award of the State of Washington and the 1989 Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society of Church History. For her book The Resurrection of the Body, she received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize and the Jacques Barzun Prize from the American Philosophical Society for the best representation in cultural history.

For her research Bynum was awarded numerous other academic honors and memberships. From 1986 to 1991 she was MacArthur Fellow. It was in 1989 a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and in 1993 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995 she became a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society. Bynum received honorary doctorates from 14 universities ( including the University of Chicago, Colgate University and Northwestern University ) awarded. In 2007 she was awarded the title History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person a Festschrift dedicated, edited by Rachel Fulton and Bruce Holsinger. In 2012 she was elected as a foreign member of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts of the Federal Republic.

Writings (selection )

• Docere Verbo et Exemplo. An Aspect of Twelfth - Century Spirituality ( = Harvard Theological Studies. Vol. 31). Scholars Press, Missoula MT 1979, ISBN 0-89130-267-0.
• Jesus as Mother. Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages ( = Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Vol. 16). University of Califormia Press, Berkeley CA, etc. 1982, ISBN 0-520-04194-1.
• Holy Feast and Holy Fast. The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women ( The New Historicism =, Studies in Cultural Poetics. Vol. 1). University of Califormia Press, Berkeley CA, etc., 1987, ISBN 0-520-05722-8.
• Mysticism and asceticism in life of medieval women: Some Comments on the Typologies of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch. In: Wolfgang Schluchter (eds.): Max Weber's view of occidental Christianity. Interpretation and criticism ( = Suhrkamp Taschenbuch science. Stw 730). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-28330-8, pp. 355-382.
• Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. Zone Books, New York, NY, 1991, ISBN 0-942299-62-0. German ( abridged): Fragmentation and redemption. Sex and body in the faith of the Middle Ages ( = Edition Suhrkamp 1731. Es = NF 731 ). From the American Brigitte Great. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-11731-9 ( Contains, inter alia, a basic discussion of Victor Turner).