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Professor Ruth Karras
Lecky Professor of History 1913, History

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Mothers and Forced Marriages in the Later Middle Ages in, editor(s)Katherine Scheil and Linda Shenk , Early Modern Improvisations, Abingdon, Routledge, 2024, pp58 - 67, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2024

Ruth Karras, Katherine Pierpont, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 4th, Abingdon, Routledge, 2023, 1 - 260pp Book, 2023

Attitudes to Same-Sex Sexual Relations in the Latin World in, editor(s)Hannah Skoda , A Companion to Crime and Deviance in the Middle Ags, Leeds, Arc Humanities, 2023, pp84 - 101, [Ruth Karras] Book Chapter, 2023

Karrras, Ruth Mazo, and Katherine E. Pierpont, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 4th, Abingdon (UK), Routledge, 2023, 1 - 260pp Book, 2023

Injection: A Gender Perspective on Domestic Slavery in, editor(s)Damian Pargas, Juliane Schiel , The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History, Palgrave, 2023, pp215 - 224, [Ruth Mazo Karras] Book Chapter, 2023 TARA - Full Text

David and Jonathan as a Paradigm of Male Friendship in Medieval Latin Literature in, editor(s)Marzena Zawanowska and Mateusz Wilk , The Character of David in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Warrior, Poet, Prophet and King,, Leiden, Brill, 2021, pp188 - 206, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2021

Authorship and Intellectual Life: Jewish and Muslim Women in, editor(s)Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, and John Van Engen , Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages, Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2020, pp21 - 23, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2020

Karras, Ruth Mazo, The regulation of 'Sodomy' in the Latin East and West, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 2020, p969 - 986 Journal Article, 2020

Afterword in, editor(s)Natasha R Hodgson, Katherine J Lewis, Matthew Mesley , Crusading and Masculinities, Abingdon, Routledge, 2019, pp345 - 355, [Karras, Ruth] Book Chapter, 2019

David and Jonathan: A Medieval Bromance. in, editor(s)Ann Marie Rasmussen , Rivalrous Masculinities, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, Notre Dame University Press, 2019, pp151 - 173, [Ruth Karras] Book Chapter, 2019

David and Bathsheba: Masculine Sexuality in Medieval Judaism and Christianity in, editor(s)Daniel Gerster and Michael Kruggeler , God's Own Gender? Masculinities in World Religions, Baden-Baden, Ergon Verlag, 2018, pp201 - 218, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2018

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 3rd, Abington, Routledge, 2017 Book, 2017

Baumgarten, Elisheva; Karras, Ruth Mazo; Mesler, Katelyn, Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Transmission in Medieval Jewish Culture, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017 Book, 2017

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Royal Masculinity in Kingless Societies" , Journal of the Haskins Society , 28 , 2016, p83 - 100 Journal Article, 2016

"John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited" in, editor(s)Doggett, Laine E.; O'Sullivan, Daniel E. , Founding Feminisms: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns, Woodbridge, Suffolk, D.S. Brewer, 2016, pp111-121 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo; Linkinen, Tom] Book Chapter, 2016 TARA - Full Text

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Telling the Truth about Sex in Late Medieval Paris", Reading Medieval Studies , 20, 2014, p67 - 81 Journal Article, 2014

"The Christianization of Medieval Marriage" in, editor(s)Wolverton, Lisa; Mengel, David , Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2014, pp1-24 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2014

"The Wife of Bath" in, editor(s)Rigby, Stephen; Minnis, Alastair , Historians on Chaucer: The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp319-333 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2014

"Clergé, mariage et masculinité au Moyen Âge" in, editor(s)Sohn, Anne-Marie , Une histoire sans les hommes est-elle possible? , Lyon, ENS Editions, 2013, pp109-120 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2013

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Aerial Battle in the Toledot Yeshu and Sodomy in the Later Middle Ages" , Medieval Encounters , 19, 2013, p493 - 533 Journal Article, 2013

"Marriage: Medieval Couples and the Uses of Tradition" in, editor(s)Chazelle, Celia; Doubleday, Simon; Lifshitz, Felice; Remensnyder, Amyz, and Amy G. Remensnyder , in Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice , Abington, Routledge, 2012, pp54-65 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2012

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in Medieval Europe , Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012 Book, 2012

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France", Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies , 86 , 2011, p1010 - 1039 Journal Article, 2011

Vann Sprecher, Tiffany; Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Midwife and the Church: Ecclesiastical Regulation of Midwives in Brie, 1499-1504", Bulletin of the History of Medicine , 85, 2011, p171 - 192 Journal Article, 2011

Bradley, Cameron; Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Masculine Sexuality and a Double Standard in Early Thirteenth-Century Flanders?" , Leidschrift , 25, 2010, p63 - 77 Journal Article, 2010

"The Sexual Body" in, editor(s)Kalof, Linda , in A Cultural History of the Human Body In the Medieval Age, Oxford, Berg, 2010, pp59-75 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo; Murray, Jacqueline] Book Chapter, 2010

Karras, Ruth Mazo; Kaye, Joel B.; Matter, E. Ann, Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008 Book, 2008

"Marriage, Concubinage, and the Law" in, editor(s)Karras, Ruth Mazo, Kaye, Joel, and Matter, E. Ann , in Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe., Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, pp117-129 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2008

"Thomas Aquinas's Chastity Belt: Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe" in, editor(s)Bitel, Lisa; Lifshitz, Felice , in Gender & Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, pp52-67 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2008

"Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy" in, editor(s)Kuefler, Matthew , The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp273-286 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2006

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The History of Marriage and the Myth of Friedelehe" Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), 119-151, Early Medieval Europe , 14, 2006, p119 - 151 Journal Article, 2006

"The Lechery That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Sodomy and the Vices in Medieval England" in, Newhauser, Richard , In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005, pp193-205 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2005

"Christina's Tempting" in, editor(s)Fanous, Samuel, and Henrietta Leyser , Christina of Markyate, Abington, Routledge, 2004, [Staples, Kathryn Kelsey, and Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2004

"'This Skill in a Woman is By No Means to Be Despised': Weaving and the Gender Division of Labor in the Middle Ages" in, editor(s)Burns, E. Jane , in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 89-104., New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp89-104 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2004

"Using Women to Think With in the Medieval University in, editor(s)Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. , Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe 1200-1550, Turnhout, Brepols, 2004, pp21-33 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2004

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Women's Labors: Reproduction and Sex Work in Medieval Europe", Journal of Women's History, 15, (4), 2004, p153 - 158 Journal Article, 2004

Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe , Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003 Book, 2003

"'Because the other is a poor woman, she shall be called his wench': Gender, Sexuality, and Social Status in Late Medieval England" in, editor(s)Farmer, Sharon; Pasternack, Carol Braun , Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003, pp210-29 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2003

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Marriage and the Creation of Kin in the Sagas" , Scandinavian Studies, 4, 2003, p473 - 490 Journal Article, 2003

"Young Knights Under the Feminine Gaze" in, editor(s)Eisenbichler, Konrad , The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society 1150-1650, Toronto, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002, pp190-205 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2002

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities" , American Historical Review , 4, 2000, p1250-65. Journal Article, 2000

"Separating the Men from the Goats: Masculinity, Civilization, and Identity Formation in the Medieval University" in, editor(s)Murray, Jacqueline , Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, New York, Garland, 1999, pp189-214 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1999

"Sex and the Singlewoman" in, editor(s)Bennett, Judith;Froide, Amy , Singlewomen in the European Past, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, pp127-45 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1999

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Prostitution as Sexual Identity in Medieval Europe", Journal of Women's History, 11, (2), 1999, p159-77 Journal Article, 1999

"Leccherous Songys: Medieval Sexuality in Word and Deed" in, editor(s)Ziolkowski, Jan , Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, Leiden, Brill, 1998, pp233-45 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1998

"God and Man in Medieval Iceland: Writing Women Out of Conversion History" in, editor(s)Muldoon, James , Varieties of Religoius Conversion in the Middle Ages, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1997, pp110-114 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1997

"Sharing Wine, Women, and Song: Masculine Identity Formation in Medieval European Universities" in, editor(s)Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome; Wheeler, Bonnie , Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, New York, Garland, 1997, pp187-202 - [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1997

"Sex, Money, and Prostitution in Medieval English Culture" in, editor(s)Murray, Jacqueline; Eisenbichler, Konrad , Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1996, pp201-16 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1996

"Ut Cum Muliere: A Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London" in, editor(s)Fradenburg, Louise; Freccero, Carla , Premodern Sexualities, Abington, Routledge, 1996, pp101-116 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo; Boyd, David L. ] Book Chapter, 1996

"Prostitution in Medieval Europe" in, editor(s)Bullough, Vern L.; Brundage, James A. , Handbook of Medieval Sexuality: A Book of Essays, New York, Garland, 1996, pp243-60 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1996

"Two Models, Two Standards: Moral Teaching and Sexual Mores." in, editor(s)Hanawalt, Barbara A.; Wallace, David , Bodies and Disciplines: Intersections of Literature and History in Fifteenth-Century England, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp123-38 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1996

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996 Book, 1996

Boyd, David Lorenzo; Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Interrogation of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London" , GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies , 1, 1994, p459-65 Journal Article, 1994

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Misogyny and the Medieval Exemplum: Gendered Sin in John of Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium" , Traditio, 47 , 1992, p233-57 Journal Article, 1992

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Latin Vocabulary of Illicit Sex in English Ecclesiastical Court Records" , Journal of Medieval Latin, 2 , ( ), 1992, p1-17 Journal Article, 1992

"Servitude and Sexuality in Medieval Iceland" in, editor(s)Palsson, Gisli, , From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, Enfield Lock, Middlesex, Hisarlik Press, 1992, pp289-304 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1992

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age" , Scandinavian Studies , 62, 1990, p141 62. Journal Article, 1990

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend" , Journal of the History of Sexuality , 1 , 1990, p3032 Journal Article, 1990

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Regulation of Brothels in Later Medieval England" , Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 14 , 1989, p399 433 Journal Article, 1989

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia , New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988 Book, 1988

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Virgin and the Pregnant Abbess: Miracles and Gender in the Middle Ages" , Medieval Perspectives, 3, 1988, p112-132 Journal Article, 1988

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Friendship and Love in the Lives of Two Twelfth-Century English Saints" Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988): 305 20, Journal of Medieval History , 14, 1988, p305-20 Journal Article, 1988

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Pagan Survivals and Syncretism in the Conversion of Saxony" , Catholic Historical Review, 72 , 1986, p553-572 Journal Article, 1986

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Early Twelfth-Century Bohemian Coinage in Light of a Hoard of Vladislav I" , American Numismatic Society Museum Notes , 30, ( ), 1985, p179 210. Journal Article, 1985

Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Seventh-Century Jewellery from Frisia: A Re-Examination" , Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 4 , 1985, p159-177 Journal Article, 1985

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Perfect Men? The Nine Worthies and Medieval Masculinities: The Sophus Bugge Memorial Lecture 2019, Collegium Medievale, 30, 2020, p5 - 22 Journal Article, 2020

Love, Sex, and Sexuality in, editor(s)Joanne Ferraro, Frederik Pedersen , A Cultural History of Marriage in the Medieval Age, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, pp115 - 129, [Ruth Mazo Karras] Book Chapter, 2020

"Sexuality in Medieval Europe" in, editor(s)Linehan, Peter; Nelson, Janet; Costambeys, Marios , The Medieval World 2d ed, Abington, Routledge, 2018, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2018

"The Reproduction of Medieval Christianity" in, editor(s)Thatcher, Adrian , The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Christian Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp271 - 286, [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2014

Bennett, Judith M,; Karras, Ruth Mazo, The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013 Book, 2013

"Women, Gender, and Medieval Historians" in, editor(s)Bennett, Judith; Karras, Ruth Mazo , The Oxford Handbook of Women & Gender in Medieval Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp1-17 , [Bennett, Judith M; Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 2013

"Analyses of Silver Content in a Hoard of Twelfth-Century Bohemian Pennies" in, editor(s)Oddy, W.A.; Archibald, M.M. , in Metallurgy in Numismatics II, London, British Museum Publications, 1988, pp81-86 , [Karras, Ruth Mazo] Book Chapter, 1988

Research Expertise

Keywords

Church history; History of Gender and Sexuality; Jewish History; late middle ages; Literature and History; MARRIAGE; masculinity; Medieval Europe; slavery

Recognition

Representations

President, Medieval Academy of America, 2019-20; First Vice-President, 2018-19; Second Vice-President, 2017-18; Chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Harassment, 2018

General Editor, The Middle Ages Series, University of Pennsylvania Press 1994-present

American Historical Review, Editorial Board 2015-2018

President, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women 2005-08

Gender and History, North American Co-Editor 2008-2013

Awards and Honours

Donald Bullough Fellowship, St. Andrews Institute for Medieval Studies 2018

EURIAS (European Institutes for Advanced Study) Fellowship 2016-2017

Israel Institute for Advanced Study, invited member 2016-17

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Fellowship 2012

Joan Kelly Prize in Women's History from American Historical Association, for Unmarriages 2012

Honored as a "Feminist Foremother" by Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship 2012

American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship 2010-11

University of Minnesota, Graduate-Professional Teaching Award 2010

University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts, Dean's Medal 2010

Fellow, Medieval Academy of America 2009

University of Minnesota, Distinguished Women Scholars Award in Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts 2008

American Philosophical Society, Sabbatical Fellowship 2004-05

University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts, Scholar of the College 2003

Rhodes Scholarship 1979

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship 1993-94

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Member 2003-04

Memberships

Women's History Association of Ireland

Medieval Academy of America

American Historical Association

Berkshire Conference of Women Historians