TEAMS is delighted to announce the first recipient of the TEAMS / Bonnie Wheeler Award for Teaching Excellence in Medieval Studies. Prof. Wheeler was present at the ICMS session in her honor where this prize was awarded by Prof. Sigal on behalf of the Board of Directors of TEAMS.
Matthew Gabriele is Professor of medieval studies and the chair of the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech.
His interests lie in exploring religion, violence, nostalgia, and apocalypse, in the Middle Ages and the modern world. Of particular interest to him have been medieval religious and political life in general, and the Crusades, and the so-called “Terrors of the Year 1000” in particular. He also speaks and writes on modern medievalism, ranging from pop culture phenomena such as HBO's Game of Thrones to white supremacist appropriations of the Middle Ages.
Prof. Gabriele has published numerous academic articles and several books, including An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade (Oxford, 2011), which received the Southeastern Medieval Association’s Best First Book in 2013, and more recently, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (HarperCollins, 2011) with David Perry.