ABOUT THE PODCAST
The Middle Ages comprises a significant number of material, economic, and intellectual networks of exchange across cultures. The shift in academic conversations towards the Global Middle Ages responds to assumptions and biases that have long misinformed critical inquiries into the history and culture of the Middle Ages. This podcast builds upon the efforts of scholars working to rectify and broaden understanding of the Middle Ages by offering a platform for medievalists to discuss their research and learnings about the multicultural reality of the Middle Ages extending well beyond the study of Western Europe.
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The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast spotlights ongoing conversations and avenues of inquiry related to this fascinating and diverse historical period. It invites thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages, forging and strengthening connections between experts and the wider public and producing counter-narratives that address misappropriations of medieval material, such as those perpetrated by white supremacists.
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The podcast invites proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines for single episodes on creative, thoughtful, and culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages that can engage fellow medievalists and the wider public.
Calls for episode proposals circulate in October/November—see an example here.
ABOUT THE TEAM
Loren Easterday Lee Cantrell is a Doctoral Candidate of French at the University of Virginia, specializing in Old French translation, manuscript studies, and the digital humanities. For the 2024-2025 academic year, she was named the Digital Humanities Fellow of the UVA Scholars’ Lab (a department within the UVA Library community for experimental scholarship informed by digital technologies). Loren has previously served as the Chair of the Graduate Student Committee of the Medieval Academy of America, and her research has been supported by several major fellowships including the Chateaubriand and the SPFFA Jeanne Marandon Doctoral Research Fellowship.
Will Beattie is an independent researcher of apocalypticism and early medieval England. He received his PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and his dissertation explored the embedding of eschatological imagery in local landscape and history. He is an affiliated scholar of the university's Medieval Institute. In addition to The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast, Will is co-creator and editor of Meeting in the Middle Ages podcast.
Jonathan F. Correa Reyes is a professor at Clemson University. He completed his PhD with the Department of Comparative Literature at The Pennsylvania State University and served as a Pre-Doctoral Fellow of the Ford Foundation (2020-2023). His dissertation focused on Middle English romances and ultimately contributes to ongoing efforts to excavate a pre-modern critical race theory. Beyond his work in Middle English literature, Jonathan also researches literary productions in Old English, Spanish and Arabic (mainly from the Iberian Peninsula), and Old Norse/Icelandic.
Reed O'Mara is a PhD candidate and Mellon Foundation Fellow in the joint art history program between Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She is the 2025–27 Samuel H. Kress Institutional Fellow at the Zentralinstitute für Kunstgeschichte in Munich. Reed's research focuses on the arts of medieval Germany, and her primary research interests lie in Jewish illuminated manuscripts and Gothic architectural sculpture. Her dissertation considers the complex histories of Hebrew and Yiddish in late medieval Europe through an examination of text and image relationships in Jewish illuminated manuscripts and Christian prints from Ashkenaz and Italy, ca. 1200-1500.
Logan Quigley's PhD (2022, Notre Dame) explored late medieval spatiotemporal experiences and understandings, focusing particularly on pilgrimage.