Marcia L. Colish (1937 – 2024) was an American historian who specialised in medieval intellectual history.[1] From 1963 to 2001 she taught at Oberlin College,[2] where she became the Frederick B. Artz Professor of History. From 2001 onwards she pursued historical research at Yale University.[1]
Life
editMarcia Colish was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of Dr. Samuel and Daisy K. Colish. She gained her BA from Smith College in 1958. She continued to Yale University for her MA (1959) and PhD (1965), studying there with historians of Christianity Roland Bainton and Jaroslav Pelikan.[1]
After a short period teaching at Skidmore College,[1] Colish joined Oberlin College in 1963. In the 1960s she led the campaign to abolish a nepotism rule at Oberlin, which prevented both members of a couple from serving on the faculty.[3] She used a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989–1990 to work on her book on Peter Lombard, for which she won the Haskins award.[1] In the early 1990s she helped lead the campaign to reform Oberlin's sexual harassment policy.[3]
On retirement from Oberlin, Colish moved to Guilford to be nearer to Long Island Sound and Yale University. She continued to pursue research as a fellow at Yale. A 2002 symposium on her work, held at the Claremont Graduate School,[1] resulted in a festschrift published in 2010.[4]
She died on April 9, 2024, in New Haven, leaving her body to the Yale University Medical School.[3]
Works
edit- The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge Yale UP, 1968; 2nd rev. ed., University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
- The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1985; rev. paperback ed., 1990.
- Peter Lombard, 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
- Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-1400. Yale UP, 1997; paperback ed., 1999; new printing, 2003. Italian trans., 2001; Chinese trans., 2009.
- Remapping Scholasticism. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaval Studies, 2000.
- Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man. University of Notre Dame Press, 2005; paperback ed., 2005.
- Studies in Scholasticism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
- The Fathers and Beyond: Church Fathers between Ancient and Medieval Thought. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
- Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates. 2014.
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f "Obituary: Marcia Colish". New York Times. Retrieved 2024-09-11 – via legacy.com.
- ^ "Marcia L. Colish". Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ a b c "Marcia Colish, Frederick B. Artz Emerita Professor of History, Dies at 86". Oberlin College. April 18, 2024. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ Cary J. Nederman; Nancy van Deusen; E. Ann Matter, eds. (2009). Mind Matters: Studies of Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual History in Honour of Marcia Colish. Brepols N.V. ISBN 9782503527567.