Kenneth Stow

University of Haifa

Ius commune, exploitation, and emancipation

2010-2011: Fall

Alexander Bodini Research Fellow in Culture and Religion

Kenneth Stow has devoted over forty years to studying the relations between the Church and the Jews in the Middle Ages and into early modern times. His studies are both diachronic and synchronic. He has written essays tracing developments in papal policies from the early Church through the eighteenth century, and he has concentrated on the history of the Jews in Rome in the early modern period, which is to say, the longtime theoretical developments applied in practice. In all his studies, he has emphasized the role of law, canon law and ius commune, in particular, in shaping first thinking and then action with respect to the Jews. He will spend his time as a Fellow at the Italian Academy studying the texts of these two legal traditions housed in the Columbia libraries, especially those in the Diamond Law Library, which is a unique collection.