Professor Ruth Karras

Professor Ruth Karras

Lecky Professor of History 1913, History

3531896 1823

Publications and Further Research Outputs

  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 3rd, Abington, Routledge, 2017Book, 2017
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in Medieval Europe , Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012Book, 2012
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe , Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003Book, 2003
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996Book, 1996
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia , New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988Book, 1988
  • Baumgarten, Elisheva; Karras, Ruth Mazo; Mesler, Katelyn, Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Transmission in Medieval Jewish Culture, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017Book, 2017
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo; Kaye, Joel B.; Matter, E. Ann, Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008Book, 2008
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Royal Masculinity in Kingless Societies" , Journal of the Haskins Society , 28 , 2016, p83 - 100Journal Article, 2016
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Telling the Truth about Sex in Late Medieval Paris", Reading Medieval Studies , 20, 2014, p67 - 81Journal Article, 2014
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Aerial Battle in the Toledot Yeshu and Sodomy in the Later Middle Ages" , Medieval Encounters , 19, 2013, p493 - 533Journal Article, 2013
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France", Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies , 86 , 2011, p1010 - 1039Journal 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 - 192Journal Article, 2011
  • Bradley, Cameron; Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Masculine Sexuality and a Double Standard in Early Thirteenth-Century Flanders?" , Leidschrift , 25, 2010, p63 - 77Journal Article, 2010
  • 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 - 151Journal Article, 2006
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Women's Labors: Reproduction and Sex Work in Medieval Europe", Journal of Women's History, 15, (4), 2004, p153 - 158Journal Article, 2004
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Marriage and the Creation of Kin in the Sagas" , Scandinavian Studies, 4, 2003, p473 - 490Journal Article, 2003
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities" , American Historical Review , 4, 2000, p1250-65.Journal Article, 2000
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Prostitution as Sexual Identity in Medieval Europe", Journal of Women's History, 11, (2), 1999, p159-77Journal Article, 1999
  • 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, p459-65Journal Article, 1994
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Misogyny and the Medieval Exemplum: Gendered Sin in John of Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium" , Traditio, 47 , 1992, p233-57Journal Article, 1992
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Latin Vocabulary of Illicit Sex in English Ecclesiastical Court Records" , Journal of Medieval Latin, 2 , ( ), 1992, p1-17Journal Article, 1992
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "The Virgin and the Pregnant Abbess: Miracles and Gender in the Middle Ages" , Medieval Perspectives, 3, 1988, p112-132Journal Article, 1988
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend" , Journal of the History of Sexuality , 1 , 1990, p3032Journal Article, 1990
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age" , Scandinavian Studies , 62, 1990, p141 62.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 433Journal Article, 1989
  • 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, p305-20Journal Article, 1988
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, "Pagan Survivals and Syncretism in the Conversion of Saxony" , Catholic Historical Review, 72 , 1986, p553-572Journal 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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "'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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "'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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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, "Seventh-Century Jewellery from Frisia: A Re-Examination" , Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 4 , 1985, p159-177Journal Article, 1985
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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 - 986Journal Article, 2020
  • 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
  • Karrras, Ruth Mazo, and Katherine E. Pierpont, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 4th, Abingdon (UK), Routledge, 2023, 1 - 260ppBook, 2023
  • Ruth Karras, Katherine Pierpont, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, 4th, Abingdon, Routledge, 2023, 1 - 260ppBook, 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Bennett, Judith M,; Karras, Ruth Mazo, The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013Book
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • "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
  • 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
  • Karras, Ruth Mazo, Perfect Men? The Nine Worthies and Medieval Masculinities: The Sophus Bugge Memorial Lecture 2019, Collegium Medievale, 30, 2020, p5 - 22Journal Article

Research Expertise

Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, History and Archaeology, History and Archaeology,

Recognition

  • EURIAS (European Institutes for Advanced Study) Fellowship 2016-2017
  • Donald Bullough Fellowship, St. Andrews Institute for Medieval Studies 2018
  • Honored as a "Feminist Foremother" by Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship 2012
  • University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts, Dean's Medal 2010
  • Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Member 2003-04
  • Israel Institute for Advanced Study, invited member 2016-17
  • University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts, Scholar of the College 2003
  • American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship 2010-11
  • Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Fellowship 2012
  • University of Minnesota, Graduate-Professional Teaching Award 2010
  • Joan Kelly Prize in Women's History from American Historical Association, for Unmarriages 2012
  • University of Minnesota, Distinguished Women Scholars Award in Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts 2008
  • Fellow, Medieval Academy of America 2009
  • Rhodes Scholarship 1979
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship 1993-94
  • American Philosophical Society, Sabbatical Fellowship 2004-05
  • Medieval Academy of America
  • American Historical Association
  • Berkshire Conference of Women Historians
  • Women's History Association of Ireland
  • American Historical Review, Editorial Board 2015-2018
  • Gender and History, North American Co-Editor 2008-2013
  • General Editor, The Middle Ages Series, University of Pennsylvania Press 1994-present
  • General Editor, The Middle Ages Series, University of Pennsylvania Press 1994-present
  • President, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women 2005-08
  • President, Medieval Academy of America, 2019-20; First Vice-President, 2018-19; Second Vice-President, 2017-18; Chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Harassment, 2018
  • President, Medieval Academy of America, 2019-20; First Vice-President, 2018-19; Second Vice-President, 2017-18; Chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Harassment, 2018
  • Gender and History, North American Co-Editor 2008-2013
  • President, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women 2005-08
  • American Historical Review, Editorial Board 2015-2018