Robert Mathiesen
Professor:
Slavic Languages
Phone:
My academic interests have changed several times during the many years I have been at Brown. At Berkeley and Columbia I studied Slavic linguistics and philology (specializing in the Church Slavonic language), and I was originally hired by Brown to teach Slavic historical linguistics to graduate students. Because I have always been far more interested in dead languages than in living ones, and far more interested in bygone centuries than in the modern world, I gradually narrowed my Slavic interests to the study of the Slavic Middle Ages alone, and gradually broadened my medieval interests to include the Western Middle Ages as well as the Slavic and Byzantine ones.
Biography
I was born in 1942, and came from California in the Fall of 1967 to teach at Brown. I have a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD from Columbia University. (In 1967 Brown had not yet implemented its New Curriculum, and was a much smaller and less sophisticated university than it is now.) My ancestors settled in the San Francisco Bay area more than a century ago, looking for a place where they could freely practice their various eccentricities without any intervention on the part of the authorities.
My academic interests have changed several times during the many years I have been at Brown. At Berkeley and Columbia I studied Slavic linguistics and philology (specializing in the Church Slavonic language), and I was originally hired by Brown to teach Slavic historical linguistics to graduate students. Because I have always been far more interested in dead languages than in living ones, and far more interested in bygone centuries than in the modern world, I gradually narrowed my Slavic interests to the study of the Slavic Middle Ages alone, and gradually broadened my medieval interests to include the Western Middle Ages as well as the Slavic and Byzantine ones. I still offer courses in Old Church Slavonic (Slavic 221) and the History of Russian (Slavic 223) when I have a firm commitment (a year ahead of time) from advanced students who will be enrolled in them.
About ten years ago a number of scholars at various universities began to create a new field of study devoted to the history and theories of magic, occultism and esoteric movements, and I began to teach courses in those areas at the same time. At present I offer three such courses, Magic in the Middle Ages (University Course 82), Women, Magic and Power, 1800-1960 (University Course 83), and Esoteric Russia (Russian 109). I have also directed several independent studies in the general area of magic and magical religion. Almost all of my current scholarly research is in this field instead of Slavic studies.
Interests
Old Church Slavonic, Slavic Linguistics, Medieval Studies
Curriculum Vitae
