Associate Professor of Religion and History, Christianity, Judaism, and medieval and early modern religious history.
Deeana Klepper, Associate Professor in the Departments of Religion and History, holds a PhD in Medieval European History from Northwestern University. Professor Klepper teaches courses on Christianity, Judaism, and medieval and early modern European religious history. Professor Klepper’s research focuses on medieval religious identities, cultures, and interreligious encounters. Her book The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Texts in the Later Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press) explores the complicated and contradictory attitudes toward Jewish tradition held by Christian scholars and shows how the Franciscan Bible commentator Nicholas of Lyra came to serve as an important mediator of Hebrew and Jewish tradition for Christian Europeans. Her forthcoming book, Pastoral Care and Community in Late Medieval Germany: Albert of Diessen’s “Mirror of Priests” (Cornell University Press) brings to light a Latin manual for German priests written (and revised) between 1370-77 and uses it to expand our understanding of religion in medieval Europe. Through the lens of Albert’s life and work, we see how “universal” religious ideals and laws were adapted, reinterpreted, and repurposed by those given responsibility to implement them, thereby crafting distinctive, local expressions of Christianity.
Books
The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages
By Deeana Klepper
University of Pennsylvania Press
January 2007
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Courses
- CAS RN 104 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
- CAS RN 212 Christianity
- CAS RN 242/HI 203 Magic, Science, and Religion from Plato to Voltaire
- CAS RN 248 Food and Religion
- CAS RN 337/RN 637/WS 377/JS 377/HI 205 Gender and Sexuality in Judaism
- CAS RN 410/710 Religion, Community, and Culture in Medieval Spain
- CAS RN 470/770 Topics in Medieval Religious Culture