Dr. Miller currently researches how issues of gender and masculinity play out during conflicts between laymen and clerics in the Middle Ages. On this subject, Miller published a book titled Patronage, Power, and Masculinity in Medieval England: A Microhistory of a Bishop's and Knight's Contest over the Church of Thame (New York: Routledge, 2023). On related topics, he has also published several articles. Most recently, with Anne Grauer, “Flesh on the Bones: An Historical and Bioarchaeological Exploration of Sex, Gender, and Trauma in Medieval England," in Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts, Volume 6 (2017), 38-79. The same year he penned “Deer Parks and Masculine Egos: Knights, Priors, and Bishops in the Medieval North of England," in Princes of the Church: Bishops and their Palaces, ed. D. Rollason (New York: Routledge 2017), 127-141. Prior to that, Miller published “'Tails' of Masculinity: Knights, Clerics and the Mutilation of Horses in Medieval England," Speculum 88.4 (October 2013): 958-995, “To 'Frock' a Cleric: The Gendered Implications of Mutilating Ecclesiastical Vestments in Medieval England," Gender and History 24:2 (August 2012): 271-91, and “Knights, Bishops and Deer Parks: Episcopal Identity, Emasculation and Clerical Space in Medieval England," in Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. Jennifer Thibodeaux (Palgrave 2010), 204-37. His latest project explores medieval France: “Monks and Their Frenemies: Chronicling Gender, Masculinity, and Violence in Twelfth-Century Vézelay." Tanya Stabler Miller, ed. Medieval Work, Worship, and Power: Persuasive and Silenced Voices (Forthcoming with Routledge).
Education: Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
- Dissertation: Carpe Ecclesiam: Households, Identity & Violent Communication, Church & Crown under King Edward I
MA. Medieval History, University of Toronto, Canada
- Masters Thesis: Female Association with Witchcraft during the Late Middle Ages
BA, History (with honors) and Literature (with honors), University of Iowa; Pembroke College, University of Oxford
PUBLICATIONS
- Patronage, Power, and Masculinity in Medieval England: A Microhistory of a Bishop’s and Knight’s Contest over the Church of Thame (London and New York: Routledge, 2023)
- With Anne Grauer (Loyola), “Flesh on the Bones: An Historical and Bioarchaeological Exploration of Sex, Gender, and Trauma in Medieval England.” Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts, Volume 6 (2017), 38-79
- “Deer Parks and Masculine Egos: Knights, Priors, and Bishops in the Medieval North of England." Princes of the Church: Bishops and their Palaces, ed. D. Rollason (New York: Routledge 2017), 127-141
- "Tails of Masculinity: Knights, Clerics and the Mutilation of Horses in Medieval England." Speculum 88.4 (October 2013), pp 958-995
- "To 'Frock' a Cleric: The Gendered Implications of Mutilating Ecclesiastical Vestments" in Medieval England Gender & History, Vol.24 No.2 (August 2012): 271-91
- "Knights, Bishops and Deer Parks: Episcopal Identity, Emasculation and Clerical Space in Medieval England" in Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. Jennifer D. Thibodeaux (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
INVITED TALKS
Lectured on “Aristocratic Identity and Hunting Grounds: Landscapes of Privilege and Violence in the North of Medieval England," at the “Colloquium: Celebrating the Work and Pedagogy of Sharon Farmer," University of California, Santa Barbara, February 2019
Lectured on “Bishops and Deer Parks," specifically “Deer, Parks, and Masculine Egos: Knights, Priors, and Bishops in the North of Medieval England," in Bishop Auckland, England, for the conference “Princes of the Church and their Palaces: An International Conference and Public Lectures hosted by Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Auckland Castle," June-July 2015
Lectured with Anne Grauer of Loyola University on “Flesh on the Bones: An Historical and Bioarchaeological Exploration of Sex, Gender, and Trauma in Medieval England," for the conference “A Thing of the Past: Material Evidence and the Writing of England's Past," University of Michigan, Tisch Hall, June 2015
Organized and taught a half-day session of “The Vikings: Medieval Ambassadors of Terror, Trade and Multiculturalism," at the Newberry Library Teachers' Consortium on strategies for high school teachers to approach the Vikings in the classroom, March 2015
- Organized and taught two half-day sessions of Sex, Violence and Gladiators: Teaching the Roman Empire (without Hollywood), at the Newberry Library in Chicago on strategies for high school teachers to approach the Roman Empire in the classroom (March 2013).
- Organized and co-taught a day-long seminar, Religion, Propaganda, and War: Medieval and Modern Understandings of the Crusades, at the Newberry Library on strategies for high school teachers to approach the crusades in the classroom, December 2010
- Lectured on Animal Mutilation and the Law in Medieval England, at the Medieval Studies Center of Loyola University Chicago lecture series, Law and Order: The Middle Ages, April 2009
HONORS AND AWARDS
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, September 2023
- Awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, DePaul University, 2013-2014
- Nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, DePaul University, 2011-2012, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2015-2016
- Nominated for a Graduate Student Association Excellence in Teaching Award, UCSB, 1997-1998
SERVICE
- Recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
- Organized a panel, Conflict, Violence and the Construction of Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe, at the 126th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Chicago, January 2012
- Review of Kay Slocum, Sources in Medieval Culture and Politics (Prentice Hall), December 2008
- Organized and moderated a talk at DePaul Universitys Art Museum by Sharon Farmer on The Empire Comes Back: France and the Mediterranean World during the Age of the Crusades, May 2008
- Panel Moderator, Husbands, Lovers, and Fathers: Clerical Masculinity in Crisis, at the 13th annual ACMRS Conference, Masculinities and Femininities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2007
CURRENT PROJECTS
- “Monks and Their Frenemies: Chronicling Gender, Masculinity, and Violence in Twelfth-Century Vézelay." Tanya Stabler Miller, ed. Medieval Work, Worship, and Power: Persuasive and Silenced Voices (Forthcoming with Routledge)
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
CLASSES TAUGHT
- Ancient Rome: Augustus to Constantine (History 285)
- Crusades (History 365)
- England to 1688 History 292)
- Europe, 400-1400 CE (History 171)
- God, Self, and Society in Medieval Culture (History 316)
- History in Global Contexts: The First Crusade (Honors 102)
- History in Global Contexts: The Vikings (Honors 102)
- History in Global Contexts: Witchcraft (Honors 102)
- Vikings: Medieval Ambassadors of Terror, Trade and Multiculturalism (History 217)
- Western Europe: From Renaissance to Enlightenment: 1348 to 1789 (History 172)
- Witchcraft in the Western World: Gender, Culture, and the Law (History 238)
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
My educational philosophy is firmly grounded in the belief that we must train students to become better historians. I structure my lectures, readings, assignments, and exams with the goal of developing students' abilities to think critically about the past, to formulate their own analyses of primary sources as well as continuity and change over time, and to communicate clearly and logically in written and verbal form their own interpretation of History.
REASON FOR CHOOSING FIELD OF STUDY
The money.