ULRIKE WIETHAUS, Professor Emerita, held a joint appointment as full professor in the Department for the Study of Religions and in American Ethnic Studies. She was elected as the 2013 Community Solutions Fellow with the Institute for Public Engagement at Wake Forest University, and the 2013 recipient of the Donald O. Schoonmaker Faculty Award for Community Service. She served as a Shively Faculty Fellow from 2010-2012. As the inaugural director, she has guided the creation of the Religion and Public Engagement concentration in Religious Studies. She also served as one of three Founding Planning Board Members for the American Indian Women of Proud Nations Annual Conference, 2007 – 2017; as Founding Co-Director, MedCat: Medical Careers and Technology (Culturally Based College Preparation Seminar with Health and Medical Division, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), 2007- 2012; as Planning Board Member, Feather & Stone Exchange, San Carlos Apache Community Engagement, 2008 – 2011; as Co-Producer and Director (with Jack Lucido and Harry Charger), The Seven Rites of the Lakota, 2008 – 2009; as Director, Internship Projects with Guilford Native American Association, Greensboro, North Carolina, 2005 – 2015; and as Director and Producer, Lakota Wo’okiye: Lakota Language and Culture Preservation and Revitalization Project, Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota, 2003 – 2006.
PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS
Elisabeth Busse-Wilson. St. Elisabeth of Thuringia. A Psychological Study (1931). Translated from German with introduction and notes. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025.
American Indian Women of Proud Nations: Essays on History, Language, Healing, and Education. Second Edition. Co-edited with Cherry Maynor Beasley and Mary Ann Jacobs. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2024.
Moravian Americans and their Neighbors, 1772-1822. Co-edited with Grant P. McAllister. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023.
Upon Her Shoulders. Southeastern Native Women Share their Stories of Justice, Spirit, and Community. Co-edited with Mary Ann Jacobs and Cherry Maynor Beasley, Durham, NC: Blair Publishing, 2022. https://www.blairpub.com/shop/upon-her-shoulders
American/Medieval Goes North. Earth and Water in Transit. Co-edited with Gillian Overing. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2019.
American/Medieval. Nature and Mind in Cultural Transfer. Co-edited with Gillian Overing. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2016.
American Indian Women of Proud Nations: Essays on History, Language, and Education. Co-edited with Cherry Maynor Beasley and Mary Ann Jacobs. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2016.
German Mysticism and the Politics of Culture. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2014.
Trauma and Resilience in American Indian and African American Southern History. Co-edited with Anthony S. Parent Jr. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2013.
Brothers of the Buffalo Speak Up: Contemporary American Indian Prison Writings. Edited, with an introduction. Non-profit, CreateSpace 2012.
Foundations of First Peoples’ Sovereignty. Edited, with an introduction and co-authored chapter. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.
Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations. Translated from Latin with introduction, notes, and interpretive essay. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2002.
Ecstatic Transformations. Ecstasies and Visions in the Work of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Transpersonal Psychology. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Maps of Flesh and Light. The Religious Experience of Medieval Women. Edited, with an introduction and previously unpublished essay. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993.
Dear Sister. The Correspondence of Medieval Women. Co-edited with Karen Cherewatuk, with an introduction and previously unpublished essay. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
PUBLICATIONS: ARTICLES AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOOKS (Select)
“Indigenous Spirituality in Film and Television”, Brill’s Handbook of Contemporary Religion Series: Contemporary Religion, Television, and Film. Boston and Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishing. In press.
“Wichtig und doch unsichtbar? Literaturwissenschaft und Hochschulwesen im Literaturbetrieb: Ein deutsch-amerikanischer Dialog im Kontext des Notre Dame Berlin Seminars.” Co-authored with Necia Chronister, Claire Ross, and Sarah Traylor. Die grosse Mischkalkulation. Institutions, Social Import, and Market Forces in the German Literary Field. Ed. William Donahue and Martin Kagel, 69-89. Leiden and Boston: Brill and Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2021.
“Bride of Christ: Imagery”. Updated re-issue for Routledge Encyclopedia Medieval Encyclopedia. Online. New York: Routledge Publishing, 2018.
“Mindfulness, Contemplative Pedagogy, and the Medieval Now”, The Once and Future Classroom, Volume XIII, Issue 1 (Fall 2016), Special Issue on Teaching Feeling. https://once and-future-classroom.org/archives/
“Let Prisoners be Our Teachers: What We Can Learn from Teaching Yoga in Correctional Institutions”. Contemplative Practices Conference (Virginia Tech), Conference Proceedings, 2016. https://texts.shanti.virginia.edu/content/vatech-contemplative-practices-conference-2016.
“Re-imagining Nature and American Indian Identity in Film” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, 10.2 (2016), 189-207.
“Collaborative Literacy and the Spiritual Education of Nuns at Helfta”, in Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Kansas City Dialogue, editors Virginia Blanton, Veronica O’Mara, and Patricia Stoop, 27-47. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015.
“To the IceHouse With Apologies to Virginia Woolf: Conversations on Place in the Humanities,” with Judith Irwin-Mulcahy, Michele Gillespie, Emily Wakild, and Gillian Overing. Forum, 10 (2010).
“The Eastern Band of Cherokee: Cultural Revitalization and Demedicalized Death,” with Lisa Lefler. Religion, Death and Dying. Volume I. Ed. Lucy Bregman, 213-227. Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2010.
“Diné (Navaho) Narratives of Death and Bereavement,” with Lawrence Shorty. Religion, Death and Dying. Volume III. Ed. Lucy Bregman, 171-90. Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2010.
“Mysticism, Experience, and Pedagogy in Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” with Andrew Ettin. Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, IV: 1 (2009), 1-13. http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/vol4/iss1/30/
“Spatial Metaphors, Textual Production, and Spirituality in the Works of Gertrud of Helfta”, in A Place to Believe In. Locating Medieval Landscapes. Edited by Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, 132-50. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2006.
“Christian Spirituality in the Medieval West (600-1450)”, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality. Edited by Arthur Holder, 106-22. Malden/Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
“Dionysius of Ryckel: Masculinity and Historical Memory” in Anchorites, Wombs and Tombs. Intersections of Gender and Enclosure in the Middle Ages. Edited by Liz Herbert McAvoy and Mari Hughes-Edwards, 116-31. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005.
“The German Historian Elisabeth Busse-Wilson (1890-1974): Academic Feminism and Medieval Hagiography, 1914-1931.” In Women Medievalists and the Academy. Ed. Jane Chance, 353-67. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.
“Christian Spirituality in the Medieval West (600-1450 CE).” In The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality, 106-122. Ed. Arthur Holder. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2005.
“Body and Empire in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34:1 (2004), 41-65.
“Music and Liminality: The Death Song of Marie d’Oignies (1177-1213) in Context.” In The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in Flanders. Edited by Ellen Kittell and Mary Suydam, 53-81. New York: St. Martin’s Press/Palgrave Press, 2004.
“Pulchrum Signum? Sexuality and the Politics of Religion in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (d. 1001).” In New Approaches to Hrotsvit Studies. Edited by Phyllis Brown and Katharina, 125-47. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
“Female Homoerotic Discourse and Religion in Medieval German Culture.” In Difference and Genders in the Middle Ages. Edited by Sharon Farmer and Carol Pasternack, 288-321. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
“First Year Seminar: Film and Middle Ages”. In Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal (http://H-Net.MSU.EDU/~FILMHIS). Edited by Peter C. Collins, 2002.
“Thieves and Carnivals: Gender in German Dominican Literature of the Fourteenth Century.” In The Vernacular Spirit. Essays on Medieval Religious Literature. Edited by Renate Blumenthal-Kosinski, 209-39. Vol. 4 of The New Middle Ages. New York: St. Martin’s Press/Palgrave Press, 2002.
“Street Mysticism: An Introduction to The Life and Revelations of Agnes Blannbekin.” In Women Writing in Latin. Vol. 2. Edited by Laurie J. Churchill, Phyllis Brown, and Katharina Wilson, 281-309. New York: Routledge, 2002.
“Medieval Women Mystics: A Few Courtly Feasts and Many Bag Lunches.” In Women Mystics Speak to Our Times. Edited by David B. Perrin, 3-17. Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 2001.
“Frauen, Spiritualität, und das Europäische Mittelalter: Made in the USA.” In Zwischenräume. Deutsche feministische Theologinnen im Ausland. Theologische Frauenforschung in Europa. Vol. 1. Edited by Katharina von Kellenbach and Susanne Scholz, 123-39. Münster-Hamburg-London: LIT Verlag, 2000.
“Female Spirituality, Medieval Women, and Commercialism in the United States.” In New Trends in Feminine Spirituality. Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts. Edited by Juliette Dor, Lesley Johnson, and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne under the auspices of the Center for Medieval Studies, University of Hull, 297-315. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999.
“Cinematic Representations of Medieval Women and their Legacy: Using Film, Text, and Theory to Teach Medieval Women’s Culture” with Jane E. Jeffrey. Medieval Feminist Newsletter 25 (Spring 1998): 40-46.
“Feminist Historiography as Pornography: St. Elisabeth of Thuringia in Nazi Germany.” Medieval Feminist Newsletter 24 (Fall 1997): 46-55.
“Mechthild von Magdeburg’s Mystical-Poetic Language: An Inspiration for Women’s Spirituality Today?” Re-Visioning Our Sources. Women’s Spirituality in European Contexts. Edited by Annette Esser, Anne Hunt Overzee, Susan Roll, 106-13. New York: KOK Pharos, 1997.
“Naming and Un-naming Violence Against Women: German Historiography and the Cult of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia (1207-1231).” Studies in Medievalism IX. Medievalism and the Academy. Vol. 1. Edited by Leslie Workman, Kathleen Verduin, and David D. Metzger, 187-209. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997.
“‘Cherchez la femme’: Religion and Gender in Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.” Psychohistory Review, 24:2 (1996):137-55.
“Christian Piety and the Legacy of Medieval Masculinity.” Redeeming Men: Essays on Men, Masculinities, and Religion. Edited by Stephen B. Boyd, W. Merle Longwood, Mark W. Muesse, 48-62. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
“‘Auf einem Bett aus Elfenbein’: Sexualität und Spiritualität.” Göttinnen und Priesterinnen. Facetten feministischer Spiritualität. Edited by Donate Pahnke, 161-75. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995.
“‘For This I Ask You, Punish Me.’ Norms of Spiritual Orthopraxis in the Work of Maria van Hout [d.1547].” Ons Geestelijk Erf 68, 3 (Fall 1994): 253-70.
“Female Authority and Religiosity in Epistolary Works of Katharina Zell and Caritas Pirckheimer.” Mystics Quarterly 19, 3 (1993): 123-36.
“On Violations and Fragmentations: Feminist Scholarship and Late Medieval Women’s Ecstatic Spirituality.” Women & Language 16, 1 (Spring 1993): 7-14.
“Wider den unberührbaren Gott.” In Streitfall Feministische Theologie. Edited by Hartmut Meesmann and Britta Hübener, 305-15. Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1993.
“Feministische Spirituälitat in den USA.”Dialog der Religionen 2, 2 (1992):185-95.
“Learning as Experiencing: Hadewijch as Spiritual Pedagogue.” Faith Seeking Understanding: Learning and the Catholic Tradition. Edited by George C. Berthold, 89-107. Manchester, NH: St. Anselm’s Press, 1991.
“Sexuality, Gender, and the Body in Late Medieval Women’s Spirituality.”Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7, 1 (Spring 1991):35-52.
“‘Wenn ich einen Körper aus Eisen hätte’: Weiblichkeit und Religion in den Briefen der Maria van Hout.” Frühneuzeit Info 2, 2 (1991): 41-51.
“A Critical Discussion of Caroline Walker Bynum’s Jesus as Mother.” In Der Gott der Männer und die Frauen. Edited by Marie Therese Wacker, 93-101. Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1987.
“Suffering and Healing in the Work of Mechthild of Magdeburg.” Listening 22: 2 (Spring 1987): 139-51.
“Hildegard of Bingen’s Play Ordo Virtutum – A Weapon against the Cathars?” American Benedictine Review 38, 2 (June 1987):192-203.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES (Select)
“Medieval Spirituality in the West”, New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Edited by Philip Sheldrake, 429-32. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.
“Nominalism”, New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Edited by Philip Sheldrake, 462-64. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.
“Gott/Göttin. Theologiegeschichte/Mittelalter”; “Jesus Christus. Theologiegeschichtliche Aspekte.” In Wörterbuch der Feministischen Theologie. 2d. ed. Edited by Elisabeth Gössmann, et al., 252-54; 304-6. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002.
“Hadewijch of Brabant”; “Visions.” In Encyclopedia of Women and World Religions. Edited by Serenity Young, 1:1009-11; 2:387. New York: MacMillan Reference USA, 1999.
“Beatrijs of Nazareth”; “Christina Mirabilis”; “Hadewijch”; “Heloise”; “Juliana of Mt. Cornillon”; “Luitgard of Aywieres”; “Marie d’Oignies”; “Marguerite Oingt”;“Radegund”; “Religious Experience of Women.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval France. Edited by Grover Zinn, et al., 222, 440, 443, 504, 569, 587, 591 777-78, 985, 983-86. New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1995.
“Spiritualität (feministisch)/Spirituality (feminist).” In Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. Internationale theologische Enzyklopädie. Edited by Erwin Fahibusch, Jaroslav Pelikan, John Mbiti et al., 420-26. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and W. M.B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995 (revised and up-dated, English edition, 2006).
PUBLICATIONS: BOOK REVIEWS (over 25)
Church History
Critical Review of Books
Dialog der Religionen
Germanic Studies
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Journal of Ecumenical Studies
Journal of Men’s Studies
Journal of Medieval Studies
Mediaevistik
Medieval Feminist Newsletter
Mystics Quarterly
Perspectives in Religious Studies
Psychohistory Review
Reading Religion. American Academy of Religion
Schlangenbrut. Zeitschrift für feministisch und religiös interessierte Frauen
Speculum
Sixteenth Century Journal
Yearbook of the European Society of Women in Theological Research
FILMOGRAPHY
2007-2008
Co-Producer and Director, The Seven Rites of the Lakota, with Jack Lucido and Harry Charger. Funded with a Publication and Research Grant, Wake Forest University
2006
Producer and Director. Lakota Wo’okiye. Lakota Language and Culture Preservation and Revitalization: Presentations by Elders on the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota, with Harry Charger. Funded with a Pro Humanitate Grant, Wake Forest University
EDITORIAL AND PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS (over 25)
Reviewer for National Science Centre, Division of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Kraków, Poland, 2019.
Evaluator, NEH Proposals: Summer Seminars and Institutes 2008 (2007).
Editorial Board, Medieval Feminist Forum (1999 – 2004).
Ad hoc reviewer for Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Journal of Moravian Studies, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Journal of Religious History, Magistra, Speculum.
Reviewer for American Academy of Religion Cultural Criticism Series (2000), Beacon Press (1989), Columbia University Press (2001), Cornell University Press (1994, 2004), National Endowment for the Humanities, Translations Program (1993), Syracuse University Press (1994), University of Pennsylvania Press (1995).
- FYS 100: Contemplative Traditions
- FYS 100: Culture and Capitalism
- REL 101: Introduction to Religion
- REL 111: American Indian and First People’s Traditions
- REL 245/ESE 322: Religion, Poverty, and Social Entrepreneurship
- REL265/HMN265/AES 285: Contemporary Issues in American Indian Culture and Religion
- HON 310: The Other Middle Ages
- REL 367: Contemplative Traditions in Christianity
- REL 392: Topics in First Peoples’ Traditions
- REL 395: Seminar in Jewish-Christian Relations
- REL 700: Theory and Method in Religious Studies
An Open Letter to My Students: My Teaching Philosophy
To me, teaching in the humanities is an invitation to create knowledge in cooperation. My interdisciplinary training forms the foundation for our work together: to immerse ourselves in the complex process of increasing understanding, insight, and opportunities for advocacy. In the classroom and beyond, this process centers on what it means, has meant, and could mean to be a human being in community with other beings, human and non-human. An appreciation of place – our ties to the land, to home, to a specific landscape — and the meaning that places hold for past and future generations are also important in my work with you. Our conversations thus may begin with an inquiry into the ways in which religion, healing, and place-based cultures intersect; with an inquiry into the foundations of mystical experience; or with an inquiry of how academic, community-based research can support Indigenous sovereignty. Our conversations may be guided by best practices in contemplative pedagogy such as mindful listening and inviting experiences of silence, spaciousness and stillness.
I am passionate about the intellectual and pragmatic possibilities that open up when the classroom is turned into a laboratory peopled with you as active learners and junior colleagues. At the beginning of each semester, you arrive already equipped with an impressive toolbox: your autobiographical experiences of place and people; your feelings, your values, and already existing knowledge about the topics to be explored. You are creative and talented. My pedagogy builds on your strengths, values, and skills through a variety of assignments. These include written, oral, and visual, and sometimes even kinesthetic modules. You will often work in teams to create a portfolio. You will develop and test research skills through the pursuit of hypotheses and the critical analysis and appreciation of scholarly work in any given area of study. You will often review films, art works, and web-sites, conduct discussion groups, and engage in community-based projects. We will learn with each other and from each other by contributing and complementing different voices and strengths. Assessing your intellectual growth, your expanding knowledge base and research skills, and your community-building skills will be an integral part of each new assignment. For example, assessments may take the form of in-depth feed-back on research paper drafts or grades given for weekly written assignments and engaged class participation. You will be encouraged to provide constructive feed-back to your peers in the form of oral and written comments, and will be given opportunities for honest self-assessment.
Precisely because I conceive of the classroom as a place for collaborative learning and open-ended conversations, I see my own intellectual and personal growth as deeply connected to your creativity and fresh insights.
Welcome to the world of engaged humanities scholarship!
Ulrike Wiethaus, Professor of Religion and American Ethnic Studies