Marcia L. Colish (1937 – 2024) was an American historian who specialised in medieval intellectual history. From 1963 to 2001 she taught 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, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

, where she became the Frederick B. Artz Professor of History. From 2001 onwards she pursued historical research at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Life

Marcia Colish was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, the daughter of Dr. Samuel and Daisy K. Colish. She gained her BA from

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

in 1958. She continued to Yale University for her MA (1959) and PhD (1965), studying there with historians of Christianity

Roland Bainton Roland Herbert Bainton (March 30, 1894 – February 13, 1984) was a British-born American Protestant church historian. Life Bainton was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England, and came to the United States in 1902. He received an AB degree ...

and

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 D ...

. After a short period teaching at

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a Private school, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,700 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Scien ...

, Colish joined Oberlin College in 1963. In the 1960s she led the campaign to abolish a nepotism rule at Oberlin, which prevented both members of a couple from serving on the faculty. She used a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 1989–1990 to work on her book on

Peter Lombard Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus; 1096 – 21/22 August 1160) was an Italian scholasticism, scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of ''Sentences, Four Books of Sentences'' which became the s ...

, for which she won the Haskins Medal. In the early 1990s she helped lead the campaign to reform Oberlin's sexual harassment policy. On retirement from Oberlin, Colish moved to Guilford to be nearer to

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a sound (geography), marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York (state), New York to the south. From west to east, ...

and Yale University. She continued to pursue research as a fellow at Yale. A 2002 symposium on her work, held at the

Claremont Graduate School The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California, United States. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium which includes five undergraduate and two grad ...

, resulted in a ''festschrift'' published in 2010. She died on April 9, 2024, in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

, leaving her body to the Yale University Medical School.

Works

* ''The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge'' Yale UP, 1968; 2nd rev. ed., University of Nebraska Press, 1983. * ''The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages'', 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1985; rev. paperback ed., 1990. * ''Peter Lombard'', 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994. * ''Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-1400''. Yale UP, 1997; paperback ed., 1999; new printing, 2003. Italian trans., 2001; Chinese trans., 2009. * ''Remapping Scholasticism''. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2000. * ''Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man''. University of Notre Dame Press, 2005; paperback ed., 2005. * ''Studies in Scholasticism''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. * ''The Fathers and Beyond: Church Fathers between Ancient and Medieval Thought''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. * ''Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates''. 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colish, Marcia 1937 births 2024 deaths American medievalists American women medievalists Intellectual historians Yale University alumni Oberlin College faculty Yale University faculty