Spiritus Aevi is an interdisciplinary workshop that brings together faculty and graduate students from the departments of English, Comparative Literature, History, Romance Languages, and Near Eastern Studies. It is the only workshop for medievalists at the University of Michigan. Organized and run by graduate students, the workshop provides a stimulating community for scholars. Every two weeks, we get together to discuss work in progress (dissertation or book chapters, articles for publication, conference papers, etc.) In the past, we met off-campus, at the house of Karla Taylor, or on-campus, in 3184 or 3200 AH.

The work in progress is literary, philological, religious, historical, and philosophical in nature. Discussions center around the work of a scholar from Michigan (at the graduate student or faculty level) or around the work of an invited scholar. Our invited scholars in winter semester 2005 have been Sarah Beckwith (Duke University) and Christine Neufeld (Eastern Michigan University). Outside scholars insure regional and national visibility for our group.

For 2005-2006, we have invited Theresa Coletti (English, University of Maryland) and Gabrielle Spiegel (History, John Hopkins University) to run workshops with graduate students and faculty.

For 2006-2007, we plan to invite James Simpson (English, Harvard University) and Patrick Geary (History, UCLA) as our outside speakers.