Friday, February 7
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

University of Chicago

Classics Building, Room 110
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Co-hosted by the Medieval Studies Workshop and the Western Mediterranean Culture Workshop.

Light reception to follow the lecture

In this lecture, I would like to explore the complex reasons which led to a shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. I contend that the opening of the Atlantic for exploration and the encounter with the New World, although having an impact on Mediterranean societies, was not the sole determinant for the slow demise of the former sea as the center of European civilization.

Teófilo F. Ruiz is an internationally recognized historian whose work focuses on medieval Spain and Europe. A student of Joseph R. Strayer, Ruiz received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1974 and has taught at Brooklyn College, the CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Michigan, the Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sicences Sociales, and Princeton–as the 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching. Ruiz is currently a Professor of History at UCLA where he has taught since July 1998. In February 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Ruiz the 2011 National Humanities Medal at the White House. A scholar of the social and cultural (popular culture) of late medieval and early modern Castile, Ruiz has published many books as well as dozens of articles.