Kenneth Baxter Wolf
551 North College Avenue
Claremont, California, 91711
Phone: (909) 607-3420; Fax: (909) 621-8540
kwolf[at]pomona.edu
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1985, History: Medieval Europe. Dissertation: "Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain: Eulogius of Cordoba and the Making of a Martyrs' Movement." Gavin I. Langmuir, Director.
- Master of Arts, Stanford University, 1981, History: Medieval Europe.
- Bachelor of Arts, Stanford University, 1979, Religious Studies with Distinction and Departmental Honors.
Academic Positions
- Coordinator of LAMS (Late Antique-Medieval Studies), 2012 to present.
- Joint appointment: History and Classics, 2011 to present.
- Associate Dean of the College, Pomona College, 2006 to 2009.
- Professor, Pomona College, 2001 to present.
- Chair, History Department, Pomona College, January 1995 through June 1998.
- Associate Professor, Pomona College, 1993 to 2001.
- Assistant Professor, Pomona College, 1986 to 1993 (on leave: 1989-91).
- Visiting Assistant Professor, Pomona College, 1985-86.
- Lecturer, Western Culture Program, "Conflict and Change" track, Stanford University, 1984-85.
Honors and Fellowships
- Endowed chair: John Sutton Miner Professor of History, 2006 to the present.
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Project: Medieval Poverty Saints and the Poor, 2004-05
- Two-year Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1989-91.
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (five times: 1988, 1993, 1998, 2004, 2013).
- Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, 1983-84.
- Phi Beta Kappa, 1978.
- Dofflemyer Scholarship, Stanford University 1975-79.
Books
- Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain, Cambridge Iberian and Latin American Studies, Cambridge University Press, 1988. Web version, LIBRO (Library of Iberian Resources Online), ed. James W. Brodman, 1999. Japanese edition, tr. K. Hayashi, Tosui Shobou press, Tokyo, 1999.
- Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, translation and essays, Liverpool University Press, 1990. Revised edition: 1999.
- Making History: The Normans and their Historians in Eleventh-century Italy, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
- The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis Reconsidered, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, Oxford University Press, 2003. Paperback edition, 2005.
- The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, translation and introduction, University of Michigan, 2005.
- The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from her Canonization Hearings, translation and essays, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Articles
- "The Earliest Spanish Christian Views of Islam," Church History 55 (1986), pp. 281-293.
- "The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad," in Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, eds., Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 1990, pp. 89-101.
- "Crusade and Narrative: Bohemond and the Gesta Francorum," Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991), pp. 207-216.
- "The 'Moors' of West Africa and the Beginnings of the Portuguese Slave Trade," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994), pp.449-69.
- "Christian Views of Islam in Early Medieval Spain," in John Tolan, ed. Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Collection of Essays, Garland, 1996, pp. 85-108.
- "Muhammad as Antichrist in Ninth-Century Cordoba," in Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English, eds. Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change, University of Notre Dame Press, 1999, pp. 3-19.
- "The Life and Afterlife of San Isidro Labrador," in Church, State, Vellum and Stone: Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John Williams, ed. Julie Harris and Therese Martin, Brill, 2005.
- "Convivencia in Medieval Spain: A Brief History of an Idea," Religion Compass (Blackwell)
- Forthcoming: "Counterhistory in the Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad," Picturing Prophetic Knowledge: The Prophet Muhammad in Cross-Cultural Literary and Artistic Traditions, ed. Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem (De Gruyter)
- Forthcoming:"Convivencia and the Ornament of the World," in Convivencia, ed. Connie Scarborough (Juan de la Cuesta)
- Forthcoming: "Falsifying the Prophet: Muhammad at the Hands of His Earliest Christian Biographers in the West," in Character Assassination, ed. Martijn Icks (Palgrave Macmillan)
Current Projects
an English translation of the Eulogius corpus
- a book-length study of views of Islam from the perspective of Christians living under Muslim rule
Invited Papers
- "Soft-Pedaling the Polemic: Recovering Alternative Christian Views of Islam," Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA, April 15, 2013 (invited by Blair Sullivan)
- "Texts in Search of Contexts: The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad," Islam and the Latin West, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 11, 2012 (invited by Jan Ziolkowski)
- "Falsifying the Prophet: Two Early Latin Lives of Muhammad," Character Assassination: the Art of Defamation throughout the Ages, an international colloquium hosted by the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum, Heidelberg, July 21, 2011 (invited by Martijn Icks)
- "La 'Contrahistoria' y las vidas más antiguas de Mahoma en España," Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid (invited by Therese Martin), June 22, 2011.
- "Memories and Models: St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the Dicta Quattuor Ancillarum," The Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame (invited by Olivia R. Constable), January 21, 2010.
- "Counterhistory in the Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad," at the conference "Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions," in Florence, sponsored and hosted by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Max-Planck-Institut (invited by Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem), July 2009.
- "Confesiones de un bicho raro," Lección magistral for the doctoral students of the Faculty of Geography and History, University of Salamanca (invited by José María Mínguez), May 31-June 1, 2007.
- "Convivencia and the Ornament of the World, Keynote address, Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA) annual meeting at Woffard College (invited by Timothy Schmitz), October 5, 2007.
- "Convivencia in its Historical Context," University of Santa Clara (invited by Fabio López-Lázara), October 2006.
- "Evangelical Poverty in Female Form: The Cases of Clare and Elizabeth," Duke University (invited by Caroline Bruselius), Apr 2005. Repeated with some modification at Pomona College, Blue Room lecture series (Nov 2005).
- "St. Francis and his Poverty," key-note lecture and seminar, at the Medieval Festival of the University of Tennessee (invited by Tom Burman), April 1998.
- "The Poverty of Riches: Lessons in the Life of Francis," University of Pittsburgh (invited by John Williams), February 1995.
Texts in Translation
Current Courses
Other Links