E. Ann Matter (born December 29, 1949) is former Associate Dean for Arts & Letters and Professor of Religious Studies Emerita at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. She specializes in Medieval Christianity, including

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

, women and religion, sexuality and religion, manuscript and textual studies, biblical interpretation and sacred music.

Education

Matter was educated at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

, where she received her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

Religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

(1971), and at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, where she received her

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

(1974), M.Phil. (1975), and

Ph.D. 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 a ...

(1976) in Religious Studies under the supervision of

Jaroslav Pelikan Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. (December 17, 1923 – May 13, 2006) was an American scholar of the history of Christianity, Christian theology, and medieval intellectual history at Yale University. Early years Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. was born on Dec ...

. In 1976, Matter began to teach at the

, where, in 1996, she was elected R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Religious Studies. In 2005, Matter was appointed William R. Kenan Professor of Religious Studies and in 2006 to the post of Associate Dean for Arts & Letters, with responsibility for all 12 of the University's humanities departments. In 1992, she received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and, in 2003, she was elected 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 ...

Books

Matter is the author of *''The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990 She is editor or translator of: *

Paschasius Radbertus Paschasius Radbertus (785–865) was a Carolingian theologian and the abbot of Corbie, a monastery in Picardy founded in 657 or 660 by the queen regent Bathilde with a founding community of monks from Luxeuil Abbey. His most well-known and influe ...

, ''De partu Virginis'', Brepols, 1985 *

Grazia Deledda Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (; 27 September 1871 – 15 August 1936), also known in Sardinian language as Gràssia or Gràtzia Deledda (), was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically ...

, ''La chiesa della solitudine'', 1936, translated as ''The Church of Solitude'', University of New York Press, 2002 *

Lucy Brocadelli Lucy Brocadelli also known as the Blessed Lucy of Narni or Blessed Lucy of Narnia, (13 December 1476, in Narni – 15 November 1544, in Ferrara) was a Dominican tertiary who was famed as a mystic and a stigmatic. She has been venerated by the Ro ...

, ''Una mistica contestata: La Vita di Lucia da Narni (1476-1544) tra agiografia e autobiografia'', with Gabriella Zarri, Ed. Storia e Lett., 2011 *Alberto Alfieri, ''Education, Civic Virtue, and Colonialism in Fifteenth-Century Italy: The Ogdoas of Alberto Alfieri'', Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011 She is also the editor or co-editor of *''Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious and Artistic Renaissance'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994 *''The Liturgy of the Medieval Church'', Western Michigan University, 2001 *''Mind Matters: Studies of Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual History in Honour of Marcia Colish'', Turnhout, 2009 *''The New Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. II: From 600 to 1450'', Cambridge University Press, 2012 *''From Knowledge to Beatitude: St. Victor, Twelfth-century Scholars, and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr'', University of Notre Dame Press, 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matter, E. Ann 1947 births Living people Oberlin College alumni Yale University alumni American feminists Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America