McGuire, Brian Patrick 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born November 2, 1946, in Honolulu, HI; son of Dan Francis and Phyllis Evelyn Goemmer McGuire; married Ann Kirstin Pedersen, January 3, 1970; children: Christian Sung Dan. Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1968; Oxford University, D.Phil., 1971. Hobbies and other interests: Swimming, walking, friends, and visiting medieval sites.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Roskilde Universitetscenter, Universitetsvej 1, Postboks 260, Roskilde DK-4000, Denmark.

CAREER:

Academic and historian. St. John's College, Annapolis, MD, tutor, 1970-71; Brüel and Kjaer, Naerum, Denmark, translator, 1971; Vesterbros Studenterkursus, Copenhagen, Denmark, adjunct, 1971-72; Copenhagen University Institute for Greek and Latin, Copenhagen, lecturer, 1975-96, Medieval Center chair, 1988-96; Roskilde University Institute of History and Social Theory, Roskilde, Denmark, professor, 1996—. Postdoctoral fellow, Copenhagen Institute of History, 1972-74; guest professor, Western Michigan University, 1989, 1994.

MEMBER:

National Association of Danish Refugee Friends.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Paul Henningsen prize, 1987; Retspolitisk Forenings prize, 1991.

WRITINGS:

Conflict and Continuity at Ãm Abbey: A Cistercian Experience in Medieval Denmark, Museum Tusculanum (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1976.

Kulturblomstring og samfundskrise i 1300-tallet, C.A. Reitzels Boghandel (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1979.

The Cistercians in Denmark: Their Attitudes, Roles, and Functions in Medieval Society, Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI), 1982.

(With Kirsten Grubb Jensen and Kurt Villads Jensen) Mennesker i Danmarks og Europas middelalder, C.A. Reitzel (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1986.

War and Peace in the Middle Ages, C.A. Reitzel (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1987.

Friendship & Community: The Monastic Experience, 350-1250, Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI), 1988.

The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and His Tradition, Cistercian (Kalamazoo, MI), 1991.

Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) The Birth of Identities: Denmark and Europe in the Middle Ages, Reitzel (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1996.

(Translator and author of introduction) Jean Gerson: Early Works, preface by Bernard McGinn, Paulist Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Fjernt fra menneskers fã¦rden: sider af Esrum klosters 850-aìsrige Historie, C.A. Reitzels (Copenhagen), 2000.

Friendship and Faith: Cistercian Men, Women, and Their Stories, 1100-1250, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2002.

Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 2005.

Den levende middelalder: fortã¦llinger om dansk og europã¦isk identitet, Gyldendal (Copenhagen, Denmark), 2005.

(Editor) A Companion to Jean Gerson, Brill (Boston, MA), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals and journals, including American Benedictine Review, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Medieval Review, Politiken, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

Brian Patrick McGuire is an American academic and historian. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on November 2, 1946, he earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968. He later went on to complete a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1971. After completing his doctoral degree, McGuire moved to Denmark and began working as a translator with Brüel and Kjaer in the city of Naerum. He also worked as an adjunct in Copenhagen's Vesterbros Studenterkursus until 1972. He served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Copenhagen Institute of History from 1972 to 1974. In 1975 McGuire began working as a lecturer at Copenhagen University's Institute for Greek and Latin, a position he held until 1996. During that time he also served as a guest professor at Western Michigan University in 1989 and 1994 as well as the chair of Copenhagen University's Medieval Center from 1988 until he left the university. It was in 1996 that McGuire started working at Roskilde University's Institute of History and Social Theory as a professor. His research interests revolve around the European Middle Ages up to the Reformation.

In 1994 McGuire published Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx. The book looks into the life and writing of the medieval spiritual writer Aelred of Rievaulx. McGuire particularly examines the monk's writings on friendship and homoerotic relationships in the monastery and in his private life before becoming a monk.

Lawrence S. Cunningham, reviewing the book in Commonweal, remarked that "despite the modest disclaimer that he did not wish to study Aelred theologically, McGuire sheds much light on the sources of Aelred's writings, makes judicious pronouncements on the intentions of the writer, and carefully discriminates Aelred's own worldview from that of contemporary discussions about sexuality. This book is a nice complement to the author's earlier Friendship & Community: The Monastic Experience." Cunningham summarized that "those interested in the history of spirituality will find this a solidly scholarly study of an important writer. While obviously a learned book, it is free of footnotes. At the end of the book there is a short bibliographical essay providing background reading for each of the individual chapters."

In 2005 McGuire published Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation. The account looks at the medieval French theologian Jean Gerson, who held the position of chancellor at the University of Paris beginning at the end of the fourteenth century. McGuire focuses on his views of history, religion and lay devotion, and literature.

Daniel Hobbins, writing in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, remarked on McGuire's devotion of several pages to the "Doctrinal aux Simples Gens" and noted that "Gerson's authorship is no longer accepted." Hobbins went on to say that "this kind of mistake is inevitable when dealing with Gerson…. What better illustration of the dangers that await a Gerson researcher?" Overall, however, Hobbins claimed that "this close familiarity with the scholarship has allowed McGuire to produce a work that has much to offer anyone interested in this important fifteenth-century intellectual." Michael Wolfe, reviewing the book in the Canadian Journal of History, commented that the "suggestive" conclusion on Gerson's life and legacy "tries to compress too much into too little space," noting that the author's "efforts to offer Gerson as a guide to the ‘breakdown of communities’ and ‘narcissism of culture’ he sees today—all code words in Catholic conservative circles—seem gratuitous," concluding that "the finale proves disappointing for what is otherwise a very stimulating, eminently readable book." Wolfe conceded, however, that "the detailed chronology of Gerson's life and publication history, together with the excellent bibliography, can be usefully consulted by students and scholars," appending that "this first-rate biography conveys a palpable sense of Gerson's deep passions, keen intellect, and personal struggles that together mirror the many complexities of his own age."

Writing in the Catholic Historical Review, Francis Oakley criticized several points McGuire made in the book, mentioning that "it is impossible to grasp the full significance of Gerson's clash with Gorel on the matter of mendicant privileges without seeing it in the context of the great mendicant-secular controversy at Paris in the 1250's or the seventeenth-century struggle in France to vindicate the divinely-established hierarchical status of the parochial clergy. Nor can it convincingly be claimed that ‘Gerson's last contributions at Constance have for the most part been ignored.’" Oakley relayed, to the contrary of his criticism, that "with a book of this scope, such shortcomings are minor ones and it would be churlish to make too much of them. McGuire is the first scholar in almost eighty years to have had the spirit to take on the formidable task of attempting a full-scale biography of Gerson. Going about that task with thoroughness, sensitivity, and good, calmly-balanced judgment, he has indeed succeeded in establishing the ‘benchmark’ for future work on Gerson's life. And that has to be recognized as no mean achievement."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June 1, 1983, review of The Cistercians in Denmark: Their Attitudes, Roles, and Functions in Medieval Society, p. 664; June 1, 2006, Louis B. Pascoe, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 895.

Canadian Journal of History, spring, 2007, Michael Wolfe, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation.

Catholic Historical Review, July 1, 1995, Thomas J. Heffernan, review of Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx, p. 425; January 1, 2007, Francis Oakley, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 158.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, May 1, 2006, J.M.B. Porter, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 1619.

Commonweal, April 7, 1995, Lawrence S. Cunningham, review of Brother and Lover, p. 28.

English Historical Review, January 1, 1991, John Gillingham, review of War and Peace in the Middle Ages, p. 160; June 1, 2007, Norman Tanner, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 815.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, October 1, 2006, Daniel Hobbins, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 760.

Journal of Religion, July 1, 1995, Shawn Madison Krahmer, review of Brother and Lover, p. 420; October 1, 2000, Juris G. au Lidaka, review of Jean Gerson: Early Works, p. 687.

Journal of Theological Studies, October 1, 2006, Margaret Harvey, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 775.

Reference & Research Book News, November 1, 2002, review of Friendship and Faith: Cistercian Men, Women, and Their Stories, 1100-1250, p. 21; November 1, 2006, review of A Companion to Jean Gerson.

Sixteenth Century Journal, spring, 2000, Dan Lochman, review of Jean Gerson, p. 270; winter, 2006, Judy Kem, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 1181.

Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, October 1, 1993, E. Ann Matter, review of Friendship & Community: The Monastic Experience, 350-1250, p. 1173; October 1, 1993, Hugh Feiss, review of The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and His Tradition, p. 1171; April 1, 1996, Thomas H. Bestul, review of Brother and Lover, p. 465; July 1, 2007, James D. Tracy, review of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, p. 733; April 1, 2008, Thomas M. Izbicki, review of A Companion to Jean Gerson, p. 465.

ONLINE

Roskilde University, Department of History Web site,http://www.ruc.dk/hist_en/ (June 15, 2008), author profile.