Scott Wells, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History
and Coordinator of the Religious Studies Program
Contact Information
Office: King Hall A4026
Phone: (323) 343-2025
Fax: (323) 343-6431
Email: swells2@calstatela.edu
Educational Background
Ph.D. in History, 2003: New York University, NY, NY
B.A., 1992: Columbia University, NY, NY
Research Interests
European cultural and intellectual history
comparative religion, particularly monastic life and theology
gender studies and disability studies
medieval Germany from ca. 800 to ca. 1200
Forthcoming Publications
Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe: Gender, Power, Patronage and the Authority of Religion in Latin Christendom - essays in honor of Penelope D. Johnson, co-edited with Katherine Allen Smith. Forthcoming from Brill, Winter 2008/9.
"From Chronicling Monks to Prophesying Nuns: The Search for Salvation’s Design in Medieval Germany, ca. 970-1179" – a monograph in progress studying world histories and cosmographies produced by German monks, canonesses and nuns between the reigns of Otto I and Frederick I Barbarossa.
"The Politics of Gender and Ethnicity in East Francia: The Case of Gandersheim, ca. 850-950." In Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe.
"The Warrior Habitus in Early Eleventh-Century German Monasticism: Spiritual Athleticism in the Benedictine Reform Movement Patronized by Henry II." In Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, edited by Jennifer D. Thibodeaux. Forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan.
"Stigmatic Blindness: The Enabling Impairments of Francis of Assisi." In A World of Difference: Essays on Disability in the Middle Ages, edited by Joshua R. Eyler. Forthcoming from Ashgate.
Teaching Fields
Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Historiography and Critical Theory
World Civilizations
Comparative Religion
Winter 2009 Courses
HIST 388 – Historiography (W 6:10-10:00)
HIST 421 – The Early Middle Ages (TR 6:10-7:50)
HIST 450 – Medieval Cities (TR 4:20-6:00)
Fall 2008 Office Hours
Prof. Wells is not holding regular office hours this quarter. Please contact him by e-mail at swells2@calstatela.edu.