While in Rome Ruth Karras, the Lecky Professor of History at Trinity College Dublin and formerly Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, will continue her exploration of the biblical King David as a figure of masculinity in medieval cultures. “For this topic,” Karras said, “one of the most important visual sources are psalters, and there are some important ones in the Vatican Library that I’d like to get a look at.”

Her current direction adeptly follows her previous scholarship on the Middle Ages, such as Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in Medieval Europe (2012), From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (2003), and Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (1996)—all of which have been critically praised.