The physical contours of monastic topographies, natural and constructed, are fundamental to an understanding of how early monks went about defining the parameters of their everyday lives, their modes of religious observance, and their interactions with the larger world. The volume edited by Hendrick Dey (2007 Fellow) and Elizabeth Fentress, Western Monasticism ante litteram (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) publishes the results of a 2007 interdisciplinary conference held at the American Academy in Rome. It aims to construct a more complete picture of a seminal period—from the fourth century until the ninth—when notions of what it meant to be a monk were as numerous as they were varied and (often) conflicting.

Speaking at the presentation are: Paolo Delogu, Università “La Sapienza” di Roma; Dale Kinney (1972 Fellow, 1997 Resident), emerita, Bryn Mawr College; and Federico Marazzi, Università degli Studi "Suor Orsola Benincasa" di Napoli.