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Recent publications
Claire Weeda, 'Ethnic Stereotyping in Twelfth-Century Paris', in Meredith Cohen and Justine Firnhaber-Baker (eds), Difference and Identity in Francia and Medieval France (Farnham 2010)
Courses
Teaching experience includes introductory courses on medieval history and source materials, as well courses on the material aspects of death; ethnic character in the middle ages; a cultural history of nudity; utopias and ideals; and cross-cultural contacts in the Mediterranean region.
Research
Recently I completed my PhD dissertation 'Images of Ethnicity in Later Medieval Europe', which examines the relevance and appropriationof ethnic images in Western Europe in response to the reintroduction of climate theory in North-West Europe, against the backdrop of burgeoning educational and courtly centres where standards and values of moral and civilized behavour were being set. I discuss the fundamental shift in thinking about ethnic character which occurs in the early twelfth century, from an introspective ethical tool to ruminate the sins of peoples in light of eschatological expectations, to more wordly comments about character measured along the yardstick of civilization, increasingly ensconced in the biological theory of environmental influences on man's humoural disposition.