Eliza Buhrer's work focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of late medieval Europe, particularly England.
Although I am a medievalist by training, my scholarship is informed by questions that are relevant to the broader histories of medicine, law, and disability: How do legal concepts inform medicine and culture? Why does society associate certain qualities with intelligence and certain deficits with its absence? How does economic development impact how society defines the human subject? I explore these questions in my current research, which uses the records of hundreds of late medieval inquisitions involving people referred to as “idiots” to examine how people imagined intelligence’s absence before a crystallized concept of intellectual disability existed in western medicine.
In the 2012-13 academic year, I am teaching Western Civilization I & II, and upper division courses on the Early and High Middle Ages. Before coming to Seton Hall, I taught Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell University for five years. As a result I have a strong interest in helping students improve their writing, and make this central to my courses.