Amelia Kennedy

Biography

Dr. Kennedy is a religious and cultural historian of medieval Europe whose research focuses on histories of health, medicine, aging and disability, as well as Christian monasticism. She is currently completing her first book manuscript, a study of old age in European religious communities c. 950-1350. Tentatively entitled On the Threshold of Eternity: Old Age in Medieval Monasteries, the book argues that age was a crucial factor not only in creating communal identity, but also in navigating tensions between individual and institutional aspirations. She has published an article on abbatial retirement among the Cistercians in Radical History Review and an article on monastic disability in the Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies. After graduating with a Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2020, she completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Yale before joining the faculty at the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, Austria.