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Confronted with severe challenges for funding, for justifying a focus on Western Europe in an increasingly pluralistic society, and for maintaining that their domain can be known and taught in some substantive manner beyond the strickly interpretive and subjective, scholars of the humanities have become increasingly self-conscious and articulate about their methods and purposes. This so-called "battle over the university" will inevitabley affect the shape of teaching and research over the next decade.

In repsonse to the need to reflect collectively on their enterprise, an impressive array of contemporary North American medievalists met at the Medieval Institutd of the University of Notre Dame. Each of the essays collected in this volume is offered from the perspective of a specialty within the diverse and interdisciplinary field of Medieval Studies. These essays consider the development, present status, and future prospects both of the specialty and of the broader context of Medieval Studies in the American university.