Brian Patrick McGuire (born 2 November 1946, in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, Hawaii) is an American–Danish professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of history, lecturer and author.

Family

He is the son of sports journalist and publicity director of the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

, Dan Francis McGuire (1917–83) and high school teacher Phyllis Evelyn Goemmer (1916–2009), the fourth of nine children. He married Ann Kirstin Pedersen (b. 1947) in 1970 and adopted a son from Korea in 1980.

Education and academic career

McGuire obtained a BA in history and Latin from the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

in 1968; he had the highest grade point average in his graduating class. He became a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

at Balliol College,

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, England, where he was supervised by

Sir Richard Southern Sir Richard William Southern (8 February 1912 – 6 February 2001), who published under the name R. W. Southern, was a noted English medieval historian based at the University of Oxford. Biography Southern was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne o ...

and was granted a

D.Phil. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in history in 1971. In 1970, he was a tutor in "The Great Books of Western Civilisation" at Saint John's College,

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

. McGuire emigrated to Denmark in 1971 and worked at first for an electronics firm; from 1971 to 1972 he taught high school. He moved on to the Institute for History at Copenhagen University, where he was a

post-doctoral fellow A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

from 1972 to 1974. McGuire became a Danish citizen in 1976. From 1975 to 1996, he was a Lecturer at the Institute for Greek and Latin at Copenhagen University. In 1996 McGuire moved to Roskilde University, where he was a professor in medieval history. He retired in 2012. McGuire was elected Corresponding Fellow of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

in 2011.

Cistercian Studies

McGuire has published widely on the history of the

Cistercian Order The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

, focusing on the topics of friendship, storytelling and Cistercian monks in Denmark.

Grassroots activity

Together with his wife Ann Pedersen he founded the Jyderup Refugee Friends in 1985 and from 1986-95 was spokesperson for the National Association of Danish Refugee Friends. In 1987 he received the P.H. Prize (in memory of architect and cultural critic

Poul Henningsen Poul Henningsen (9 September 1894 – 31 January 1967) was a Danish author, critic, architect, and designer. In Denmark, where he often is referred to simply as PH, he was one of the leading figures of the cultural life of Denmark between the Worl ...

) and in 1993 the annual prize of the Legal Politics Association (Retspolitisk Forening).

Published works

He has authored 17 books and edited 8 others. * ''Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation'', 2005. * ''A Companion to Jean Gerson'' (editor) 2006. * ''Friendship and Community. The Monastic Experience 350–1250'', 2010 (new edition with added chapter on recent research). * ''A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux'' (editor), 2011.

External links

Brian Patrick McGuire's own homepage

* ttp://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780860788928 information on ''Friendship and Faith: Cistercian Men, Women, and Their Stories, 1100–1250'', ashgate.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcguire, Brian Patrick 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Academics from Hawaii University of California, Berkeley alumni Historians of the Catholic Church Alumni of the University of Oxford 20th-century Danish historians Living people 1946 births Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America American male non-fiction writers Fulbright alumni