换妻社区

Dr. Janis Gibbs has been a 换妻社区 faculty member since 1996. She is currently associate professor of history, and she also serves as co-advisor (with Professor David Cunningham) of the Fulbright Program for students who are interested in applying for Fulbright Fellowships after graduation, as a pre-law advisor and as a regular faculty member (since 1999) in the 换妻社区 Vienna Summer School. She is also a member of the Global Studies Advisory Council. 

AREAS OF expertise

Professor Gibbs's research concentrates on sixteenth-century Germany. Her dissertation was on the relationship between religion, politics and identity in Cologne. Recently, she has been investigating the strange case of Hermann von Weid, the deposed Archbishop of Cologne, who, oddly, had two funerals 鈥� one Catholic one and one Protestant.

In addition to Reformation Europe, her teaching areas include the modern Middle East, the problem of genocide in the modern world, the Middle Ages and the history of civil liberties in wartime (a first year seminar).

EDUCATIOn

• Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1996
• M.A., University of Virginia, 1991
• J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1984
• B.A. with highest honors, College of William and Mary, 1981

HONORS, GRANTS, AWARDS, & PUBLISHED WORk

• 换妻社区 Provost鈥檚 Award for Service to the Academic Program (2015)
• Nominating Committee, Society for Reformation Research (2014鈥�2016)
• Miriam Ussher Chrisman Travel Fellowship Committee, Society for Reformation Research (2014鈥�2015)
• Ad Hoc Committee for the Revision of the Constitution, Society for Reformation Research (2014鈥�2015)
• GLCA New Directions Grant, 鈥淐onfessional Conflicts: Two Archbishops, the Empire, and the Community鈥� (2012)
• Herzog August Bibliothek Fellowship, Government of Lower Saxony (2011)
• Semi-finalist, U.S. Supreme Court Fellowship Program (2011)
• Co-Membership Secretary and Treasurer, Society for Reformation Research (2001鈥�2011)
• Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (1994)
• Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (1991)

Selected Presentations

• 鈥淓xperiential Learning In and Out of the Classroom: Roundtable,鈥� sponsored by Sixteenth Century Journal, Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2015.
• 鈥淒eath Comes for the Archbishop:  The Double Commemoration of the Death of Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne,鈥� New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012
• 鈥淒eath Comes for the Archbishop: The Two Funerals of Archbishop of Hermann von Wied of Cologne鈥� (work in progress), Stipendiatenkolloquium, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenb眉ttel, Germany, 2011
• 鈥淢ayors and Mourning:  Rituals of Burial and the Political Community in Late Medieval and Early Modern Cologne,鈥� Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 2008
• Roundtable Presentation on Teaching Travel Narratives, Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 2007
• 鈥淛urisdictional Challenges: The Complexity of Jurisdiction in Early Modern Germany (or: Who's Hung Up On a Gallows?),鈥� Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 2003

Published Work

• 鈥淚mmigration and Civic Identity in Sixteenth-Century Cologne,鈥� in Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H.C. Erik Midelfort, Ashgate, 2009
• 鈥溾�橣rom Now On You鈥檒l Be History鈥�: The Transition from Memorization to Analysis,鈥� in Beyond Tests and Quizzes: Creative Assessments in College Classrooms, John Wiley and Sons, 2007
• Article on 鈥淐ologne,鈥� Europe, 1450-1798:  Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, Charles Scribner鈥檚 Sons, 2004

Outside hope

When she is not teaching, planning classes or deciphering sixteenth-century German handwriting, Professor Gibbs enjoys politics and political satire, reading (especially speculative fiction), going to the theatre, traveling and thinking that she really ought to be working out.