Dr. Phillip Stump

• Three-year fellowship at the Institute of Medieval Canon Law, School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, before coming to Lynchburg College in 1980.

While at LC:

Advisor of Istoria Club
Participant in building of two Habitat houses.
Active instructor and planner in Lynchburg College Symposium Readings Program.
Chair of the History Department and John Mills Turner Distinguished Chair in the Humanities (1996-1999).

Degrees and Certifications

1967: B.A., University of California, Los Angeles
1978: Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Information on Courses Taught

Are you interested in how things started? Just as events of our childhood profoundly shape our lives as adults, so the early development of a culture tells us much about its mature character. When we study early cultures we often borrow from the insights of the archaeologist and anthropologist. My upper level courses deal with the early cultures of Greece, of Rome, and of Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They look closely at art and literature as ways of understanding culture and society. And they consider the lives of women in these cultures, exploring the different models of gender relations these societies reveal and asking how the relations in our own society evolved.

Greek Civilization:
Philosophy, drama, democracy (indeed, politics itself), science, and the very vocabulary of our art and architecture--how many roots of our civilization we trace back to the ancient Greeks! They were an amazingly creative society, yet they in turn acknowledged their indebtedness to the civilizations of Africa and the Near East which preceded them. The Greeks sought excellence in every sphere of life and did not separate life into narrow compartments. Though they knew that excessive human greatness would bring the envy of the gods and inevitable doom, yet they strove magnificently. And when they fell, they learned that most precious of human possessions: self-knowledge.

Roman Civilization:
Nothing succeeds like success, and the Romans are perhaps the world's greatest success story. Starting as a collection of villages with mud huts, Rome became a city which conquered the entire world of its day. How did they do it? Their success does not appear to be the result of any grand strategy plotted from the beginning; instead it looks remarkably haphazard and accidental. Yet, through hard-headed practicality, trial and error, they managed to forge a concept of world-citizenship and make everyone want to be a Roman. Well, almost everyone. The Hannibals, Cleopatras, and Asterixes are as fascinating as the Romans themselves.

Medieval Culture:
"A thousand years without a bath"? Far from it! The fundamental institutions of modern European culture almost all started in the Middle Ages. (And Charlemagne deliberately built his palace at a hot springs so that he and his family and friends could bathe there often.) And yet, what a strange world we enter when we try to understand feudal land rights, crusades, inquisitions, and knights courting ladies they could never hope to marry! The challenge of understanding this world, with its "mixed smell of blood and roses" (as Huizinga puts it ) is only part of the endless fascination of the Middle Ages.

Renaissance and Reformation:
The Middle Ages ended with a crisis that almost destroyed European civilization, a double whammy of plague and economic collapse. In the midst of the deepest crisis came the Renaissance in Italy. Europe lifted itself almost by its own bootstraps and entered a period of phenomenal recovery and expansion. "Man can do all things, if he will," became the motto--economic boom, flourishing individualism, voyages of exploration; then, in the midst of the greatest upsurge, came the Reformation, with its profound sense of human sinfulness and contingency and need for divine grace. Perhaps no period in history, other than our own century, reveals so fully the heights and depths of the human experience.

Professional/Research Interests

• Research and writing about medieval history, specializing in the fifteenth century (transition between Middle Ages and Renaissance).

• Wrote a book on the Council of Constance (1414-1418), one of the greatest church councils and international congresses in history.

• Special interests are in world history, comparative history, women's history, cross cultural exchanges, church history, ideas of reform, Greek history, and Roman history.

Personal Interests and Information

Running
Listening to all music (especially jazz)
Outdoor activities (hiking, camping)
Reading
Traveling
Cooking (and eating!)

My wife and I have been married over twenty-five years. My wife, Marion, is a physical therapist. Our three children (David, Katie, and Jennifer) have all left the nest. Our dog, Toby, and our cat, Sugar, still keep us busy. I grew up in California, and my wife in Cincinnati. We met in Berkeley, California, and lived for a year in Oakland before moving to Lynchburg. We love Virginia!