Kenneth Baxter Wolf
The John Sutton Miner Professor of
History in
Classics
Founder
and coordinator of LAMS (Late Antique-Medieval Studies)
Pomona
College
551 North College
Avenue
Claremont, California, 91711
Phone:
(909) 607-3420
kwolf[at]pomona.edu
Just published (2023)
Education
- Doctor of
Philosophy, Stanford University, 1985, History:
Medieval Europe. Dissertation: "Christian Martyrs
in Muslim Spain: Eulogius of Cordoba and the
Making of a Martyrs' Movement." Gavin I. Langmuir and Stephen Ferruolo,
Directors.
- Master of Arts, Stanford University,
1981, History: Medieval Europe.
- Bachelor of
Arts, Stanford University, 1979, Religious Studies
with Distinction and Departmental
Honors.
Academic Positions
- Chair of Faculty, 2023-2025
- Coordinator of LAMS (Late Antique-Medieval Studies, Pomona College, 2012 to
present.
- Professor, Classics department, Pomona College, 2011 to present
- Chair, Classics department, 2016-2019
- Endowed chair: John Sutton Miner Professor of
History, Pomona College, 2006 to the present.
- Associate Dean of the College, Pomona College,
2006 to 2009.
- Professor, History department, Pomona College,
2001 to 2022.
- Chair, History department, Pomona College, January 1995 through
June 1998.
- Associate Professor, History department, Pomona
College, 1993 to 2001.
- Assistant Professor, History department, Pomona College, 1986 to 1993 (on leave:
1989-91).
Visiting Assistant Professor, History department,
Pomona College, 1985-86.
- Lecturer, Western Culture Program, "Conflict and Change"
track, Stanford University,
1984-85.
Honors and Fellowships
- Lester K. Little Resident in Medieval Studies at the American Academy of Rome, January 2-February 24, 2023.
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (2013).
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Project: Medieval Poverty Saints and the Poor, 2004-05
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (2004).
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (1998).
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (1993).
- Two-year Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1989-91.
- Wig Distinguished Professor, Pomona College (1988).
- Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, 1983-84.
- Phi Beta Kappa (as a junior), 1978.
- Dofflemyer Scholarship, Stanford University 1975-79.
Books
- The Indiculus luminosus
of Paul Alvarus: Translation and Study, Translated Texts
for Historians, Liverpool University Press, 2023.
- The Eulogius Corpus, Translated Texts
for Historians, 71, Liverpool University Press,
2019.
- The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of
Hungary: Testimony from her Canonization
Hearings, translation and essays, Oxford
University Press, 2011.
- The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and
Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert
Guiscard, translation and essay, University of
Michigan, 2005.
- The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis
Reconsidered, Oxford Studies in Historical
Theology, Oxford University Press, 2003. Paperback
edition, 2005.
- Making History: The Normans and their
Historians in Eleventh-century Italy,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
- Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early
Medieval Spain, Translated Texts for
Historians, 9, Liverpool University Press, 1990.
Revised edition: 1999.
- Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain,
Cambridge Iberian and Latin American Studies,
Cambridge University Press, 1988. (Web version,
LIBRO: Library of Iberian Resources Online,
ed. James W. Brodman, 1999. Japanese edition, tr.
K. Hayashi, Tosui Shobou press, Tokyo, 1999.)
Articles
- [Forthcoming] "Eulogius and Islam," Speculum (2025)
- [Forthcoming] "New Wine in an Old Wineskin:
Martyrdom and Its Discontents in Ninth-century
Cordoba," in Benito Rial Costas and dagmar Riedel,
Of Prophets and Saints: Literary Traditions and
'Convivencia' in Medieval and Early Modern
Iberia (2023)
- "Immortalizing the 'Martyrs of Cordoba:' A
Tale of Two Centuries," Visigothic
Symposium 4 (2020)
- "Myth, History, and
the Origins of al-Andalus: A Historiographical
Essay," Journal of Medieval Iberian
Studies (2019)
- "Back to the Future: Constantine and the Last
Roman Emperor," in The Life and Legacy of
Constantine, ed. Shane Bjornlie (London & New
York, Routledge, 2017), pp. 115-134.
- "Tocando con sordina: Recuperando una imagen
cristiana alternativa del Islam," in Vitae
Mahometi: Reescritura e invencion en la literatura
cristiana de controversia, ed. Candida Ferrero
Hernandez and Oscar de la Cruz Palma, Simposio
internacional, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona,
March 19-20, 2013 (Madrid: CSIC, 2014), pp. 69-84.
- "La conquista islamica: Negacionar el
negacionismo, Revista de Libros (June 2014); review
>essay: Alejandro Garcia
Sanjuan, La conquista islamica de la peninsula
iberica y la tergiversacion del pasado: del
catastrofismo al negacionismo (Madrid: Marcial
Pons, 2013). [English version]
- "Counterhistory in the Earliest Latin Lives of
Muhammad," The Image of the Prophet Between
Ideal and Ideology: A Scholarly Investigation,
ed. Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem
(Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 13-26.
- "Convivencia and the Ornament of the
World," in Revisiting "Convivencia" in Medieval
and Early Modern Iberia, ed. Connie
Scarborough (Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta,
2014), pp. 41-60.
- "Falsifying the Prophet: Muhammad at the Hands
of His Earliest Christian Biographers in the
West," in Character Assassination Throughout
the Ages, ed. Martijn Icks & Eric Shiraev (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 105-120.
- "Convivencia in Medieval Spain: A Brief
History of an Idea," Religion
Compass (Blackwell)
- "The Life and Afterlife of San Isidro
Labrador," in Church, State, Vellum and Stone:
Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John
Williams, ed. Therese Martin and Julie A.
Harris (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 131-143.
- "Muhammad as Antichrist in Ninth-Century
Cordoba," in Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D.
English, eds. Medieval and Early Modern Spain:
Interaction and Cultural Change (Southbend,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999),
pp. 3-19.
- "Crusade and Narrative: Bohemond and the Gesta
Francorum," Journal of Medieval History 17
(1991), pp. 207-216.
- "The 'Moors' of West Africa and the Beginnings
of the Portuguese Slave Trade," Journal of
Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994),
pp. 449-69.
- "Christian Views of Islam in
Early Medieval Spain," in John Tolan, ed.
Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A
Collection of Essays, Garland, 1996, pp.
85-108.
- "The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad," in
Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, eds.,
Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian
Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth
Centuries, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, Toronto, 1990, pp. 89-101.
- "The Earliest Spanish Christian Views of
Islam," Church History 55 (1986), pp.
281-293.
Invited Papers and Presentations
- Presenter at the conference, "Saints on the Move in Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia," Radbound University, Nijmegen (Netherlands), 11-12 July, 2023 (invited by Melanie Shaffer)
- Forthcoming: presenter at the "Religion and Writing" seminar at Columbia University, April 25, 2023 (invited by Dagmar Riedel)
- "Between Blasphemers and Whisperers: Managing Christian Identity in Ninth-Century Córdoba," Ethno-Religious Interaction in Premodern Iberia: Mechanisms and Trajectories, UCLA October 24, 2022 (invited by Thomas Barton)
- Chair of the virtual AHA Colloquium:
"Teaching the Medieval as Mediterranean:
Reorienting the Metanarrative," March 23, 2021 (invited by Brian Catlos)
- "Islamic
Conquests, Christian Reconquests, and the Power of
Naming," American Historical Association, Annual
Meeting, panel in honor of Joseph O'Callaghan,
January 4, 2020 (invited by Belen Vicens)
- "Reading Between the Lines in Search of
Convivencia, Medieval Academy of America,
Panel in Honor of Thomas Glick, February 26, 2016
(invited by Mark Abate)
- "Eulogio, Antes y
Ahora," Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona,
May 27, 2015 (invited by José
Martínez Gázquez)
- "Soft-Pedaling
the Polemic: Recovering Alternative Christian
Views of Islam," Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, UCLA, April 15, 2013 (invited
by Blair Sullivan)
- "Texts in Search of
Contexts: The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad,"
Islam and the Latin West, International Medieval
Congress, University of Leeds, July 11, 2012
(invited by Jan Ziolkowski)
- "Falsifying the
Prophet: Two Early Latin Lives of Muhammad,"
Character Assassination: the Art of Defamation
throughout the Ages, an international colloquium
hosted by the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum,
Heidelberg, July 21, 2011 (invited by Martijn
Icks)
- "La 'Contrahistoria' y las vidas
más antiguas de Mahoma en
España," Centro de Ciencias Humanas y
Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, Madrid (invited by Therese
Martin), June 22, 2011.
- "Memories and
Models: St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the Dicta
Quattuor Ancillarum," The Medieval Institute
of the University of Notre Dame (invited by Olivia
R. Constable), January 21, 2010.
- "Counterhistory in the Earliest Latin Lives of
Muhammad," at the conference "Crossing Boundaries,
Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad
in Literary and Visual Traditions," in Florence,
sponsored and hosted by the Kunsthistorisches
Institut in Florenz / Max-Planck-Institut
(invited by Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem),
July 2009.
- "Confesiones de un bicho
raro," Lección magistral for the
doctoral students of the Faculty of Geography and
History, University of Salamanca (invited by
José María Mínguez), May
31-June 1, 2007.
- "Convivencia and
the Ornament of the World, Keynote address,
Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA) annual
meeting at Woffard College (invited by Timothy
Schmitz), October 5, 2007.
- "Convivencia in its Historical
Context," University of Santa Clara (invited by
Fabio López-Lázara), October 2006.
- "Evangelical Poverty in Female Form: The
Cases of Clare and Elizabeth," Duke University
(invited by Caroline Bruselius), Apr 2005.
Repeated with some modification at Pomona College,
Blue Room lecture series (Nov 2005).
- "St.
Francis and his Poverty," key-note lecture and
seminar, at the Medieval Festival of the
University of Tennessee (invited by Tom Burman),
April 1998.
- "The Poverty of Riches:
Lessons in the Life of Francis," University of
Pittsburgh (invited by John Williams), February
1995.
Miscellaneous Texts in Translation
Current Courses
Other Links
