Chris L. Nighman
Areas of Expertise
- Classical Studies
- Digital Media and Social Media
- Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Biography
I received my PhD in History in 1996 and my MA in History in 1990, both from the University of Toronto, where I also held a graduate fellowship (1994-96) and a post-graduate fellowship (1996-99) at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. My undergraduate degree is a dual BA in History and Medieval Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1988).
I started teaching in Laurier’s History Department in 1997 and was granted tenure in 2008.
Since March 2023 I have held a senior fellowship as Status-Only Faculty at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto.
My research field is late medieval and early renaissance intellectual and ecclesiastical history, focusing on Latin florilegia (collections of quotations), early Italian humanism, Latin translations of Greek patristic texts, conciliar sermons (especially eulogies) and ecclesiastical politics, rhetorical theory and practice as it relates to the construction of self and delimitation of audience, pastoral reform in response to heresy, scribal agency in manuscript traditions and editorial agency in early print traditions. I am also involved in the growing field known as digital humanities, especially the publication of Open Access critical editions of historical texts.