Dr. Kathryn Jasper
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Research
Biography
Dr. Kathryn Jasper earned her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in History and Medieval Studies in 2012. She is Associate Professor of History and Director of European Studies at Illinois State University:
https://illinoisstate.edu/academics/european-studies/
Dr. Jasper supervises the Latin minor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. If you are interested in the Classical Studies Minor, please visit:
https://lan.illinoisstate.edu/latin/
Dr. Jasper is also co-director of a summer archaeological field school in Gradoli (Bolsena), Italy.
https://about.illinoisstate.edu/vallegianni/
If you would like to know more about Paleography Illuminated, an online hub for transcriptions of ISU's manuscript collection, please visit our site:
https://about.illinoisstate.edu/manuscriptproject/
If you would like to know more about Traveler's Lab at ISU, a collaboration among universities bringing together students and professional scholars to study medieval history using digital methods, please visit:
http://travelerslab.research.wesleyan.edu
Current Courses
287.003Independent Study
300.006Senior Seminar In History
222.001The Middle Ages: 395-1100
101.006Western Civilization To 1500
481.099Advanced Archaeological Field School
381.099Archaeological Field School
308.099Selected Topics In European History
221.001Ancient History Rome
286.006Honors Undergraduate Research II
398.001Professional Practice: Internship in Historical Research
300.001Research in Latin
223.001The Middle Ages: 1100-1500
101.001Western Civilization To 1500
101.002Western Civilization To 1500
Teaching Interests & Areas
My courses examine the major social and political transformations of the Roman and medieval Mediterranean Basin, from Western and Central Europe, to North Africa, Byzantium, and the Middle East. I ask that my students engage multiple sources beyond documents, such as monuments, art, and architecture. Some of my courses include an undergraduate seminar on the city of Rome, a graduate seminar on the historiography of the central Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance (usually taught as part of the ISU Orvieto study abroad program), and a two-part class on the Middle Ages from 200-1100, and 1100-1500, respectively. I teach Latin 115, the Introduction to Paleography course, and Advanced Latin Paleography in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.
Research Interests & Areas
My current research project is an archaeological excavation of a Roman imperial period, monumental fountain located 300 meters from the western coast of Lake Bolsena in central Italy. Its high quality of construction and materials and its remote rural location suggests the fountain was part of a larger complex, likely a Roman villa. Answering questions about the identity and motivations of the fountain’s patron hinges on uncovering how its construction related to the agrarian economy, to routes of export and import, and consumption of goods in the region. My approach blends analysis of historical documents with modern datasets of the physical environment, when relevant, to generate hypothetical ancient and medieval landscapes and practices in GIS databases for analysis.
My first book entitled Bounded Wilderness: Land and Reform at the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, ca. 1035-1072 (Cornell University Press, 2024) studies economic practices, religious traditions, and the natural environment in tandem to shed light on another side of religious reform. Eleventh-century reform was never solely confined to the rarefied realm of the intellect. Religious reform left its mark on the land and the landscape in Italy. It circulated much more widely and demanded thought about matters as ostensibly mundane as property boundaries and rights to water, orchards, pastures, and mills. In a word, the a book about land. Land is an excellent lens for telling the story of reform because it relates to two fundamental reform principles: independence from lay control and the sacred nature of ecclesiastical property. In a land-based economy, the value of land seems self-explanatory, but in the Middle Ages its meaning was multivalent. For many religious, land was at once the site of ascetic experience and the means of supporting their way of life. Land, therefore, became a fulcrum of reform.