Jack Ford

It was from his bachelor's and master's projects, which explored medieval cosmological texts, that Jack framed his initial questions regarding medieval approaches to the body and mind in Christian Europe. His doctoral project funded by a Wolfson scholarship (Wolfson Foundation) and Thornley Junior Research Fellowship (IHR), explores medieval understandings of the senses and emotions. Jack’s PhD thesis maintains that the concept of ‘affectivity’, the emotional disposition of the human will towards either virtuous or sinful acts, stands at the crossroads of the thought and practices of religious orders in the Middle Ages.

His research compares the De anima (‘On the Soul’) treatises written by monks and canons of the Cistercian Order and Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris during the twelfth century. De anima treatises were significant texts which drew together anthropology, ethics, medicine, philosophy and theology; they constitute invaluable witnesses to medieval understandings of ‘psychology’. Jack’s dissertation argues for significance of these texts as innovators of a coherent psychology that emphasised the control and ordering of three key powers of the body and soul: sense perception (Latin: sensus), affectivity (affectus) and the intellect (intellectus) – a psychological view of human nature that was essential to the daily exercises and reforming mission of these two religious communities, and of great influence to other religious groups and scholars of the later Middle Ages.

PhD

Supervisor: Dr Sophie Page (UCL) and Professor Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute)

Working title: 'Perception and Affectivity in Twelfth-Century Cistercian and Victorine De anima Treatises’

Expected completion date: 2023

Scholarships and Prizes

• Thornley Junior Research Fellowship, Institute of Historical Research/Isobel Thornley Charitable Trust (Oct 2021-Feb 2022).
• Wolfson Doctoral Scholarship in the Humanities, Wolfson Foundation (2018-2022) 
• Numismatics Summer School Scholarship, Koç University (2017).
• Baxendale MA Scholarship, UCL History department/Alan Stanley Baxendale Charitable Trust (2016-2018)

Publications

Articles:

• ‘Cistercian Worlds: An Introduction’, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 73 (2022), 5-11.
• ‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind: Eucrasia and Sanitas in the Medical Approaches to Affectivity of William of Saint-Thierry and Richard of Saint-Victor’, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 73 (2022), 47-99.
• Jacob’s Family as a Symbol of Affectivity in Cistercian and Victorine Psychology’, Archa Verbi 18 (2021), 39-91.
• ‘The Victorines’, The Database of Religious History (2020): https://religiondatabase.org/browse/985/
• 'Divine Love in the Medieval Cosmos', Chicago Journal of History (2017), 17-37.
   

Book Reviews:

• Pierre-André Burton, O.C.S.O., Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167): An Existential and Spiritual Biography, in Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 11 (Oct 2022), 207-209: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/J.JMMS.5.130746.

• Review of K. Essary, J. F. Ruys, M. W. Champion, eds., Before Emotion: The Language of Feeling, 400-1800, in Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval, 27:2 (2021), pp. 208: https://www.uco.es/ucopress/ojs/index.php/refime/article/view/13136.
• Review of V. Langum, Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins, in British Society for Literature and Society (2019): https://www.bsls.ac.uk/reviews/early-modern-and-enlightenment/virginia-langum-medicine-and-the-seven-deadly-sins-in-late-medieval-literature-and-culture/. 
• Review of D. Boquet and P. Nagy, Medieval Sensibilities: A History of Emotions in the Middle Ages, in Reviews in History (review no. 2321) (May, 2019).

Editorial Contributions:

• Co-editor of special edition of Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, vol. 73 (2022).
• Assistant book reviews editor, Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval (REFIME). January 2021-2022.

Conference papers and presentations

As Organiser

• 09/06/2022. ‘Senses and Affects in the Middle Ages’. 57^th International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA. Co-organised with Dr Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė (Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Cambridge). No. panels: 2. No. speakers: 8. No. attendees: 60. Medium: virtual (Zoom).
• 09/07/2021. ‘(Un)Bound Bodies’. International Medieval Congress (IMC), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. Co-organised with Dr Lauren Rozenberg (Department of Art History, UCL). Medium: virtual (Zoom). No. panels: 2. No. speakers: 6. No. attendees: 30.
• 1-2/07/2021. ‘Cistercian Worlds’. York Centre for Medieval Studies, York. Co-organised with Dr Emmie Price-Goodfellow (Department of History, University of York). Keynote speakers: Prof. Emilia Jamroziak and Prof. Constant J. Mews. Medium: virtual (Zoom). No. speakers: 45. No. panels: 17. No. attendees: 250.
• 9-10/07/2020. ‘(Un)Bound Bodies’. International Medieval Congress (IMC), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. Co-organised with Dr Lauren Rozenberg (Department of Art History, UCL). No. panels: 6. No. speakers: 18. Medium: in-person. Cancelled due to Covid-19.

As Presenter

• 01/12/2021. ‘Emotion, Sense, Experience: The Role of Affectivity in the On the Soul Treatises of the Twelfth Century’, IHR Fellows’ Seminar, Institute of Historical Research (IHR), London.
• 21/07/2021. ‘Monastic, Scholastic and Medical Maps of the Mind: An Elite Psychology’, Quo Vadis Conference, UCL, London.
• 09/07/2021. ‘“Know Thyself”: Self-Knowledge and the Boundaries of the Human in Cistercian Texts on the Soul’, International Medieval Congress (IMC), Leeds.
• 12/11/2020. ‘Symbols of Affectivity in the De anima Texts of the Twelfth Century’, European History 1150-1500 Seminar, Institute of Historical Research (IHR), London.
• 27/06/2019. ‘“Made in the Image and Likeness of God”: Affectivity and Cosmological Allegory in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Texts On the Soul’, New Voices in Medieval Studies, York Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.
• 31/05/2019. ‘Cistercian Moral Anthropology: Sense perception, affectus and the Cosmos in the Twelfth-Century De anima Texts’, Thinking with Mysticism Symposium, University of York.
• 28/05/2018. 'Investigating Wellcome MS 55 and its Connection to Sensory Perception and Cognition', Medieval Ecologies Workshop, Wellcome Library & UCL, London.

Teaching (Postgraduate Teaching Assistant)

• HIST0140: The History of Political Thought in the West (2019-2020 and 2022-2023)
• SESS0027: The History of European Political Ideas (2022-2023)
• HIST0007: Writing History (2019-2020, and 2021-2022 and 2022-2023)
• HIST0003: Approaching History (2019-2020, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023)

Widening Participation Activity 

• Tutor for UCL History ‘Making History’ Summer School (2019-2022) 

Seminars & Academic Network

• Co-convenor of UCL Interdisciplinary Medieval and Renaissance Studies (IMARS) seminar https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medieval-renaissance-studies/seminars-lectures/imars. (2018–2023)
• Convenor of the Aristotle Reading Group (Warburg Institute): https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/event/23326 (2019–2022)
• Co-convenor of the London Society for Medieval Studies, Institute of Historical Research: https://www.history.ac.uk/seminars/london-society-medieval-studies. (2019-2022)