Paula Mae Carns is the head of the Literatures and Languages Library.

What is the focus of your current work and/or subject of your current research?

My research focuses on the material culture of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England and France. One vein of scholarship looks at how aristocratic and royal patrons fashioned personal, familial, and social identities through commissioning illuminated manuscripts. Another vein considers the role of domestic objects, particularly carved ivories, in transmitting courtly and social values as well as literary tales. An emerging project examines the production of illuminated manuscripts of the Old French translation of animal fables by the Latin author Avianus (ca. 400) in fourteenth-century France. I also consider the reproduction of these manuscripts throughout the twentieth century and their impact on Avianus scholarship.

What classes do you teach? What are some of the topics of those classes?

IS572A Medieval Manuscripts and Early Modern Book

Do you have any recent awards, honors, or publications that you would like to highlight?

Carns, Paula Mae. “A Royal Affair: A Rare Depiction of Tristan and Isolde on a Medieval Luxury Object.” In Gothic Ivories between Luxury and Crisis. Edited by Manuela Studer-Karlen. Basil and Berlin: Schwabe Verlag, 2024. (Forthcoming)

Carns, Paula Mae. “Hunting for Love: French Gothic Ivory Mirror-backs and Medieval Seals.” In Artes Amatoriae: Die Kunst der höfischen Liebe in Objekt, Bild, Text und Musik (1180-1500). Edited by Juliane von Fircks and Svea Janson. Regensburg: Verlag Schnell & Steiner, 2024. (Forthcoming)

Carns, Paula Mae. “Contours and Resources of the Middle Ages,” Handbook for European Studies Librarians, Minnesota University Press, fall 2023. Carns, Paula Mae. “Making and Unmaking Love in the Macclesfield Psalter,” Gesta: Journal of the International Center of Medieval Art, 62/1, Spring, 2023, pp. 1-21.