Faculty Bio

Contact Information
Phone: 845-688-1577
Office location: Stone Ridge Campus, VAN 239H
Email: harrisn@sunyulster.edu
Links: www.NicholaHarris.com

Degree Information

B.A.  Gonzaga University, 1995
M.A.  Washington State University, 2004
Ph.D.  Rutgers, 2009

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Courses Taught

• Western Civilization I & II
• Honors History I & II
• The Early Middle Ages
• The Later Middle Ages
• Ancient Rome: Republic and Empire
• England in the Middle Ages
• Paleography

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Primary Area of Expertise

• History of premodern medicine, specific focus on the use of lapidary medicine in medieval and early modern Europe
• Premodern pharmacology
• History of the Book
• Social and cultural history of medieval and early modern England and France

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Publications and Presentations

• Book manuscript:  The Virtue of Stones: A Natural History of Lapidary Medicine from the Ancient World to the Present, the first natural history of the practice of lapidary medicine from the ancient Near East to the modern day.  Work in Progress.

• “Lapidary Medicine and the Treatment of Disease in Medieval and Early Modern England” in Death and Disease in the Long Middle Ages, eds. Nükhet Varlik, Lori Jones, (York Medieval Press, forthcoming).

• "Loadstones are a Girl’s Best Friend: Lapidary Cures, Midwives, and Manuals of Popular Healing in Medieval and Early Modern England," in The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts (AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art), eds. Barbara S. Bowers, Linda Migl Keyser (New York: Routledge, 2016)

• The Idea of Lapidary Medicine: Its Circulation and Practical Applications in Medieval and Early Modern England, 1000-1750 (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2009)

• "Early Modern Medical Consumerism and the ‘Secret’ Lapidary of Nicholas Culpeper."  Paper presented at the annual meeting for the American Association for the History of Medicine, Minneapolis, MN, 2016

• "An Anatomy of a Medieval Childbirth."  Presentation made as an invited speaker at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, 2015

• "Manuscripts, Manuals, and Masters: The Role of the Lapidary within the Medical Market Place of Early Modern Europe." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting, American Association for the History of Medicine at Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2015

• "Remedies, Recipes, and Registers: Apothecaries in Seventeenth-Century London and the Popular Practice of Physick." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting, American Association for the History of Medicine, University of Chicago, 2014

• “Popular Medical Advice & the Formulation of Herbal Remedies in Early Modern England.”  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Boston, MA. - Spring 2016   

• “Stones, Saints & Friars:  The Popular Transmission of Classical Pharmacology via Mendicant Texts.” Paper Presented at the 52nd Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. - Spring 2017 

• “Hildegard’s Heterodoxy: sources and the application of lapidary knowledge in Physica.”  Paper presented as part of a Medica sponsored panel on women authors at the 54^th Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. -Spring 2019

• “Lapidary Medicine and the Treatment of Disease in Medieval and Early Modern England.”  Paper presented at the 92^nd annual meeting of the American Association of the History of Medicine, Columbus, OH. -Spring 2019

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Volunteer Work or Group Affiliations

• The American Association for the History of Medicine
• The Medieval Academy of America
• The Renaissance Society of America

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