Skip to Main Content

The University of Tennessee

University of Tennessee Department of Classics

Frequently Used Tools:



Welcome! » Faculty & Staff » Jay Rubenstein


Jay Rubenstein

Field Specialties

Professor Rubenstein teaches courses on medieval England and France, on the place of the Normans in European history, on the crusades, and on cultural and religious history more generally

Professor Rubenstein is a historian of the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual worlds of Europe in the Middle Ages, with areas of focus in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in England, France, and the Crusader settlements. He received an M.Phil. at the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley, both in medieval history. His research interests combine intellectual, cultural, religious, and military history, with his earliest publications focusing on the cultural impact of the Norman Conquest on Anglo-Saxon society, and his more recent work examining the much more extensive impact of the First Crusade (1096-1099) on the European world. In between he wrote a biography of the French monk Guibert of Nogent, who is most famous for having written the first true autobiography of the Middle Ages and whose other works draw together a variety of intellectual, psychological, theological, and historical ideas and phenomena. For all of these projects he has lived and worked extensively in Europe, particularly in Paris, Rome, Oxford, and London.

Professor Rubenstein joined the UT faculty in the fall of 2006, after spending seven years at the University of New Mexico. At UT he teaches courses on medieval England and France, on the place of the Normans in European history, on the crusades, and on cultural and religious history more generally.

Education

  • Ph. D. University of Berkeley 1997

Selected Publications

  • Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind. Routledge, 2003.

  • Ed. with Sally N. Vaughn, Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000-1200. Brepols, 2006.

  • “What Is the Gesta Francorum, and Who Is Peter Tudebode?” Revue Mabillon 16 (2005): 179-204.

  • “Putting History to Use: Three Crusade Chronicles in Context,
    Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 35 (2004): 131-68.

  • “Biography and Autobiography in the Middle Ages,” in Writing Medieval
    History: Theory and Practice for the Post-Traditional Middle Ages, ed. Nancy Partner. Arnold: London, 2005, pp. 53-69.

  • “Liturgy Against History: The Competing Visions of Lanfranc and Eadmer of Canterbury.” Speculum 74 (1999): 271-301.

Selected Awards

  • Koren Prize, 2005, from the Society for French Historical Studies for best article of the year in French history by a scholar working in North America.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship, 2007-2008.
  • American Council of Learned Societies Burkhardt Fellowship, 2006-2007 (Affiliated Fellow, American Academy in Rome)
  • American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2002-2003
  • French-America Foundation Bicentennial Fellowship, 1994-1995
  • Rhodes Scholarship, 1989-1991
Jay Rubenstein

Contact Information

Jay Rubenstein
Associate Professor of History
915 Volunteer Boulevard
6th Floor, Dunford Hall
Knoxville, TN 37996-4065

Office: (865) 974-9870
E-mail: jrubens1@utk.edu