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Heidi Marx-Wolf <hmarxwolf@umail.ucsb.edu> Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara Currently, I am working on Late Antique and Early Medieval constructions of mental crisis and mental health in the Mediterranean world with a focus not on the personnel who treat the afflicted individual, but rather on the troubled person herself in the midst of the expanding or contracting horizon of treatment options available to her. The study also investigates how the mentally and emotionally afflicted person may serve as a site around or through which communal concerns, conflicts and anxieties are brought to the fore, coalesce, are dramatized and even resolved. In this way, the spiritually and psychologically suffering individual serves as a lens through which to look at late antique Mediterranean society free from the usual dichotomies scholars employ to discuss social, cultural and ideological change over time, namely, pagan/Christian, provincial/central, urban/rural, Latin/Greek. I also work on a similar topic in the High and Late Medieval periods. Using miracle testimonies from a wide variety of canonization processes from the 13th through the 15th centuries that attest to cures of mental crisis or demon possession wrought at saint's tombs, I have been able to draw important conclusions about how mental health and well being are constructed in these periods. I will eventually supplement this work with a study of criminal court records involving individuals who are labeled mad or possessed. |
| List Affiliations: | Advisory Board Member for H-HRE Reviewer for H-HRE |
| Interests: | European History / Studies History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Intellectual History Medieval and Byzantine History / Studies Religious Studies and Theology |
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Bio: Heidi Marx-Wolf Areas of Specialization: Roman and Late Antique History, Medieval Philosophy Areas of Competence: Ancient and Medieval History, History of Philosophy with an emphasis on Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, Ethics, Critical Thinking, Logic I. Education Ph.D. - History, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 2004-present M.A. - History, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 2004 Ph.D. - Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 1999 B.A. Honors - Philosophy, University of Calgary, AB, 1993 Professional Appointments: 2003-present - Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 2004 - Instructor, Department of Philosophy Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 2002-2003 - Teaching Assistant, Law and Society Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 2000-2002 - Instructor, Department of Philosophy Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA 2001 - Instructor, Department of Philosophy, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 2000-2001 - Writer, ABC Clio (Publisher of History Research Tools and Resources) Santa Barbara, CA 1994-1999 - Instructor, Department of Philosophy Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 1994-1996 - Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University,University Park, PA Publications: Review of Sarah Poor, Mechtild of Magdeburg and Her Book, Comitatus (forthcoming) “Metaphors of Imaging in Meister Eckhart and Marguerite Porete,” Medieval Perspectives, 13 (1998), 99-108. Presentations and Invited Lectures: “Constructions of Mental Crisis in the Canonization Process of Saint Nicola of Tolentino,” presented at the annual conference of the Medieval Academy of America Seattle, April 2004 “Furiosus et demoniatus: Records of Mental Crisis in Medieval Canonization Processes,” presented at the conference of the Medieval Association of the Pacific Portland State University, March 2003 “Augustine and Hildegard of Bingen: Making the Past Present,” presented at the conference of the Rocky Mountain Medieval Association,2002 “The Heaven of Heaven, the House of God: Human Fulfillment in the Confessions,” presented at the Pruit Memorial Symposium “Celebrating Augustine’s Confessions” Baylor University, October 2001 “Hugh of St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas: Theories of Knowledge and Learning,”invited lecture to the Department of Philosophy, California State University at Stanislaus, March 2000 “Augustine and Eckhart: Theories of Knowledge and the Birth of the Word,” presented at the conference of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Arizona State University, February 1998 “Metaphors of Imaging in Meister Eckhart and Marguerite Porete,”presented at the Southeastern Medieval Association Nashville, September 1997 Doctoral Dissertation: Title: Augustine and Meister Eckhart: Tracing a Lineage Dissertation Director: Carl G. Vaught, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Baylor University Professional Service: - Philosophical Counselor in Private Practice, 2000 - 2002 - Founder, The Alethêia Society for the Practice of Philosophy, 2000 – 2001 - Advisor, Undergraduate Philosophy Club, Santa Barbara City College, 2000 – 2001 - Philosophy Graduate Colloquia Coordinator, PSU, 1995-1997 |
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