I am a medievalist with a research focus on understandings and practices of Latin Christianity in the later Middle Ages, and texts and manuscripts of magic, especially angel magic in a Christian context. I edited two field defining collections on this topic (Conjuring Spirits [1998] and Invoking Angels [2012]). My research is driven by a broad concern with questions about knowing, and the relation of the arts and sciences to less institutionally stable forms of knowledge like magic, prophecy and theophany. I have paid special attention to an early 14th-century French monk named John of Morigny who cultivated visions of the Virgin and authored a complex prayer system that allowed its operators to gain Mary’s visionary assistance in various knowledge projects. John’s magnum opus, The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching, was until lately known only through a chronicle report of its burning, in 1323, as a heretical revival of condemned magic. I published an edition and commentary on the work with Nicholas Watson, and discuss its larger implications in another book, Rewriting Magic (2015). I am now involved in a study of prophecy, prayers and dreams, which takes my epistemological concerns with angel magic in a slightly different (though related) direction.
I am accepting graduate students with some Latin interested in premodern Christianity and the varied connections between doctrine, practice, sanctity, and shaping of religious selves.
Current Active Courses:
FWIS 114 The Holy Grail: Religion, Quest, and Transformation
FWIS 150 The World of Medieval Medicine
RELI/MDEM 105 Introduction to Medieval Christian Thought
RELI/MDEM 271 Medieval Popular Christianity
RELI 367/RELI 557 Representing the Devil in Christian Theology and Art
RELI 387 and 587 Western Esotericism: Method and Theory
RELI/MDEM 444and RELI 644 Visions and Visionary Practices: Medieval to Modern
RELI 611 Readings in Medieval Latin
Awards:
My work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1994 Postdoc and 1998 Research Grant, for work on John of Morigny), The American Philosophical Society (2003 Franklin Grant, for John of Morigny manuscript consultation), and The American Council of Learned Societies (2017 Fellowship, for my project Prophecy in Practice).
Service:
I edit a book series, Magic in History (Penn State University Press), in long term collaboration with Richard Kieckhefer. I was general editor of the journal Magic Ritual & Witchcraft from 2010 through 2024
Books:
Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Visionary Autobiography of a Fourteenth-Century French Monk. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2015.
John of Morigny’s Flowers of Heavenly Teaching: An Edition and Commentary. With Nicholas Watson. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies Press, 2015.
The Latin Verses in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis: An Annotated Translation. With Siân Echard. East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues Press, 1991. Awarded the John Hurt Fisher Prize for Gower studies in 1998.
Edited Books:
2026 (with Michael Bailey) A Cultural History of Magic in the Middle Ages, Volume 2 in A Cultural History of Magic. London: Bloomsbury, February 2026.
2012 Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Century University Park: Penn State University Press.
1998 Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Related Links:
ACLS https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/claire-l-fanger/
Societas Magica www.societasmagica.org
Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft http://magic.pennpress.org/home/
Magic in History http://www.psupress.org/books/series/book_SeriesMagic.html