John Van Engen is Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is co-editor of Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, European Transformations, and Transforming Relations (University of Notre Dame Press), and author of Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings.

"The medievalist act(s) as a cultural construct go-between...and is well placed to address many current cultural issues." - Catholic Historical Review"Perhaps it was not only in appreciation of a number of recently deceased colleagues, but in awareness of this silence about women's history and particularly the history of religious women that John Van Engen has adopted the theme of Abelard and Heloise as a metaphor for medieval studies. To have presented so clearly the vexed problem of this 'romance' and these letters in so short a space is an achievement of multi-disciplinary medieval scholarship which the entire volume celebrates." - Journal of Ecclesiastical History"Van Engen treats Medieval Studies as sharply distinct from its neighboring disciplines." - Romance Philology"The results at Notre Dame provide an interesting window on the internal turbulence of medieval studies that agitates the surrounding waters. The present volume should definitely be on the reading list for everyone who missed Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages." - The Historian" While the authors of The Future of the Middle Ages may differ in their critical stances about the reality of canonical texts, without making a point of it they show remarkable agreement about the names of the authors they find worth studying. That suggests, in turn, that destructively anti-elitist as the present culture wars may be, they have not, as yet, led to a total defeat of the notion that aesthetic greatness differentiates some authors from many others-and hence makes their works more worth studying, no matter how kaleidoscopic those works may now appear." - Speculum

John Van Engen is Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is co-editor of Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, European Transformations, and Transforming Relations (University of Notre Dame Press), and author of Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings.

"The medievalist act(s) as a cultural construct go-between...and is well placed to address many current cultural issues." - Catholic Historical Review"Perhaps it was not only in appreciation of a number of recently deceased colleagues, but in awareness of this silence about women's history and particularly the history of religious women that John Van Engen has adopted the theme of Abelard and Heloise as a metaphor for medieval studies. To have presented so clearly the vexed problem of this 'romance' and these letters in so short a space is an achievement of multi-disciplinary medieval scholarship which the entire volume celebrates." - Journal of Ecclesiastical History"Van Engen treats Medieval Studies as sharply distinct from its neighboring disciplines." - Romance Philology"The results at Notre Dame provide an interesting window on the internal turbulence of medieval studies that agitates the surrounding waters. The present volume should definitely be on the reading list for everyone who missed Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages." - The Historian" While the authors of The Future of the Middle Ages may differ in their critical stances about the reality of canonical texts, without making a point of it they show remarkable agreement about the names of the authors they find worth studying. That suggests, in turn, that destructively anti-elitist as the present culture wars may be, they have not, as yet, led to a total defeat of the notion that aesthetic greatness differentiates some authors from many others-and hence makes their works more worth studying, no matter how kaleidoscopic those works may now appear." - Speculum

John Van Engen is Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is co-editor of Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, European Transformations, and Transforming Relations (University of Notre Dame Press), and author of Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings.

"The medievalist act(s) as a cultural construct go-between...and is well placed to address many current cultural issues." - Catholic Historical Review"Perhaps it was not only in appreciation of a number of recently deceased colleagues, but in awareness of this silence about women's history and particularly the history of religious women that John Van Engen has adopted the theme of Abelard and Heloise as a metaphor for medieval studies. To have presented so clearly the vexed problem of this 'romance' and these letters in so short a space is an achievement of multi-disciplinary medieval scholarship which the entire volume celebrates." - Journal of Ecclesiastical History"Van Engen treats Medieval Studies as sharply distinct from its neighboring disciplines." - Romance Philology"The results at Notre Dame provide an interesting window on the internal turbulence of medieval studies that agitates the surrounding waters. The present volume should definitely be on the reading list for everyone who missed Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages." - The Historian" While the authors of The Future of the Middle Ages may differ in their critical stances about the reality of canonical texts, without making a point of it they show remarkable agreement about the names of the authors they find worth studying. That suggests, in turn, that destructively anti-elitist as the present culture wars may be, they have not, as yet, led to a total defeat of the notion that aesthetic greatness differentiates some authors from many others-and hence makes their works more worth studying, no matter how kaleidoscopic those works may now appear." - Speculum