On Thursday, Oct. 2, as the last traces of Minnesota summer lingered, Dr. Graham Loud, a professor emeritus at the University of Leeds, arrived on campus to give two lectures about medieval European history.
Professor Loud specializes in the history of Norman southern Italy during the central medieval ages (11th-12th centuries). On Thursday at noon, he discussed his efforts in translating Latin historical texts. Moving into the afternoon, he spoke about his research on Peter the Deacon, a medieval forger and publicist who is well-known for his controversial work.
“It was very nice to hear the perspective of a professor who has been doing historical work for a really long time,” Hope Yu ‘26, a history major who attended both of Professor Loud’s lectures, said. “I think what I notice [is] both of his talks are very rich.”
Professor Bill North, history professor and co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MARS) program, invited Professor Loud to campus.
“In July, at a medieval conference in Leeds, I ran across Professor North. He asked, ‘Could you come to Minnesota and give a couple of lectures at Carleton?’” Loud said, one of which was previously given at the University of Minnesota.
According to North, students in one of the Off-Campus Studies (OCS) programs have used Loud’s work as a source in their research. Students in Professor Victoria Morse’s medieval history class also study Loud’s writings as part of their coursework. A crucial reason for inviting a guest professor was to allow students to communicate with a leading expert in the field of medieval history.
Professor Victoria Morse is a history professor and another co-director of the MARS program. She shares a similar perspective with North, claiming that this event is an opportunity for students to practice their “listening skills” in lectures.
“If you go and you listen to a number of different people give these kinds of presentations, you’ll become a better listener and better at pulling key information out of what they’re saying,” Morse said.
According to Loud, to give lectures in the States was to “keep the subject alive.”
“My own experience is that students like hearing from fresh people,” Loud said. “They see the same teachers, week in, week out. It’s nice to hear different people.”
Loud pointed out that as a scholar, networking with other exceptional colleagues is important.
“Professor North, for example, has a lot of interests in common with me, so I will be looking more carefully for his work in the future,” Loud said. “For the faculty, these talks are really important because we spend a lot of time taking our more technical knowledge and translating it for an undergraduate audience,” said Morse. “But there are times when we have to speak up to people in our field who know even more about our field than we do, and we have to be in the mix of people who are trying on the new problems, so it’s really valuable for the faculty to be able to hear somebody who’s kind of doing the work right now.”
The process of inviting a guest speaker requires planning and communication, and schedule conflicts may cause trouble for an event. Loud spoke at four colleges in the States during this visit, including Carleton.
“Graham was extremely flexible and accommodating and was really a pleasure to work with. I think, with any visitor, the challenge is trying to find the sweet spot in the schedules,” said North.
A reason for lectures to be at noon and 5 p.m. was to avoid as many schedule conflicts as possible.
“It’s a busy week at Carleton. It’s a busy week everywhere,” North said.
“I think that public lectures partly respond to the needs of timing and other people’s schedules and all the complexities that go into this kind of thing. ” Morse said.
According to Morse, choosing a talk at lunch time and dinner time was not only to avoid schedule conflicts.
“It also gives the possibility of people who aren’t in the class to come and listen and hear a little bit and get interested.” Morse said. “If one person gets a really valuable set of ideas or inspirations, that’s already a real win, right?”
“I really recommend that other students attend any lecture that they think, not just that the content would be interesting, but that the person’s interesting,” Yu said.“I think we all do history because we like certain times and certain spaces, but I actually think that people really shape how we kind of experience it,” said Yu.
Even though this event was dedicated to MARS students and faculty, all students were welcome.
“We have so many interesting people coming to campus; these are opportunities to in very kind of low stakes ways, expand your horizons and get exposed to different ideas, different ways of thinking, different cultures. I’m always an advocate of students going to lectures,” said North.
While lectures may go highly theoretical, it is always possible to bring friends with you.
“Making it a social event too is pretty fun,” Yu said.