Mission

UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies promotes and sustains transdisciplinary studies of the periods from late antiquity to the early modern era across the globe. Five main research axes structure the polyvalent and multi-faceted inquiry of the Center’s diverse faculty: Sustainability-Repurposing; Fluidity-Permanence; Bodies-Performance; Conversion-Mobility; Communication-Archive. All research axes are open to the widest variety of historical and methodological approaches.

The Center has three primary goals: 1) To stimulate and support the scholarship and research activities of its affiliated faculty, associates, students, and scholars; 2) To foster and prepare the next generation of scholars and researchers by providing educational opportunities, financial, and other support; and, 3) To disseminate knowledge, encourage intellectual exchange, and promote Late Antique, Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Studies at the campus, local, regional, national, and global levels.

CMRS is dedicated to promoting research, teaching, and new methodologies, both in underrepresented and non-traditional areas of study, and in traditional fields and frameworks. It is guided by the conviction that without the study of the past, the present and the future are inaccessible and opaque.