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I'm Julie, a returning Ph.D. student. I'll be specializing in Medieval Christianity. More specifically, I am interested in expressions of Christian imagination during this era : fantasy and lore, magic and witchcraft, demonology and the occult, impressions and descriptions of the 'other,' hagiography and mysticism, etc. I will look at these as vehicles for defining and limiting, and yet challenging and expanding upon, the Christian experience of the world. I am fascinated by the surprisingly sober and powerful arguments concerning social, political and religious identity embedded in the seemingly whimsical and esoteric. This subject can carry me from Gregory the Great right through to Tolkien and the Merovingian bloodline legends, but I appear to be headed primarily toward medievalism. As I come to understand these materials better, I may also be able to better appreciate the challenges of globalization to the well-developed identities and regard for this world so well established in the collective Christian mind.
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