Tuesday, June 5, 2007

"The Thirty-Fifth Bampton Lectures in America"

October 9, 10, 16 and 17, at Five P.M.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor emeritus of Ecclesiastical
History, Cambridge University

"The Crusades, Christianity and Islam"

Oct. 9: "Crusades as Christian Holy Wars"
Oct. 10: "Crusades as Christian Penitential Wars"
Oct. 16: "Crusades and Imperialism"
Oct. 17: "Crusades and Islam"

The Kellogg Conference Center, Columbia University
15th Floor, School of International Affairs, 420 W.118th St.

After education at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he completed his PhD, Jonathan Riley-Smith's first university post
was in the Department of Medieval History at the University of St
Andrews in Scotland. In 1972 he returned to the Faculty of History in
the University of Cambridge before being appointed Professor of
History at Royal Holloway College, University of London in 1978. In
1994 he was elected Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History in
Cambridge. He retired at the beginning of 2005.

He is the sole author of eight books, including /The Knights of St
John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050-1310 /(1967), /The Feudal
Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174-1277/ (1973), /What were
the crusades?/ (1977, 3rd edition 2002), /The First Crusade and the
Idea of Crusading /(1986), /The Crusades: A History/ (1987, 2nd
edition 2005) and /The First Crusaders, 1095-1131/ (1997). He is also
the co-author of one book and the editor or co-editor of another
seven. He began his research career as a historian of the military
orders and then moved in the late 1960s and early 1970s on to the
political and constitutional history of the kingdom of Jerusalem. In
the mid 1970s his interests turned to the theory of crusading and the
roles of churchmen as authorizers and preachers. This led to a
concern with the responses of lay men and women to crusade ideas. He
has now returned to the history of the military orders, but he is
also interested in the long shadow of crusading, or rather of
perceptions of it, that lay across the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.

Professor Riley-Smith, who is a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval
Academy of America, has been privileged to train a group of
outstanding young historians. They include three full professors and
three others lecturing at British universities, six teaching at
American universities, others with university posts in Canada,
Switzerland, Denmark and Israel, and one who has a permanent research
post in Cyprus.

Professor Riley-Smith is a Knight of Grace and Devotion of the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta and a Knight of Justice of The Most
Venerable Order of St John.

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