Interview with Goodwin Prize Winner Clare Kemmerer

We are thrilled to introduce you to our top Goodwin Prize winner, Clare Kemmerer (Yale Institute of Sacred Music), for her essay, "Sisters in Complicity: Anti-Judaism at a Late Medieval Convent.”

Abstract: Building upon the frameworks developed by Stephanie Jones-Rogers and Elizabeth McRae which centralize the role of women in perpetuating racial violence and discrimination, this paper expands their application to the racial and religious persecution of Jews in late medieval Europe. Offering a case-study of a medieval German convent, this paper seeks to complicate both the study of medieval racial politics and that of medieval women religious. Using artistic, economic and written evidence from the fourteenth-century life at Kloster Lüne, this paper explores the ways that class, gender, and religion allowed the nuns to uniquely participate in a culture of anti-Judaism.

Where do you see connections between your personal faith, your intellectual work and the other aspects of your life? 

I spend a lot of time thinking about complicity writ large—and some of that time is spent considering my own complicity, and some of it that of historic figures or members of the Church. My research has taught me to be critical of institutional teachings, to acknowledge complex power relationships, and to have empathy for people who are radicalized by misinformation; practices that are I think as important (if not more important) to being a Christian leftist as they are to being a good medievalist.

How would you summarize your paper for someone without a theological background? 

This is a tough question, as I'm not sure *I* have a theological background--my training is in art history. But put simply, this paper uses material evidence from a medieval convent (in the form of a large embroidery) to make a theoretical argument concerning the participation of the nuns at that convent in anti-Judaism in the Middle Ages. To be clear, I’m not talking about participation in some kind of physical event (i.e. a pogrom), but a slippery, hard to quantify participation in cultural anti-Judaism. To make this argument, I drew a lot from historians like Elizabeth McRae and Stephanie Jones-Rogers, who have both written about the role of white women in different aspects of white supremacy in the United States. My argument predominantly concerns the role of nuns as artists and religious figures in articulating an anti-Jewish theology, a role that is often scholastically ignored due to the assumption that women, especially monastic women, were so cloistered as to be completely removed from society. In a sentence, the paper seeks to complicate narratives of religious and racial oppression in the Middle Ages by acknowledging the complicity of Christian women, and highlighting their position at the complex intersection of oppressor and oppressed.

How might this award make a difference in your life as you consider your future?

Materially, it’ll allow me to do some follow-up research on this project, tracking down further archival materials in Germany. It’s also been a helpful and needed reminder that the work I do is in conversation with the modern Church, despite my medieval focus. I hope I’ll be able this coming year to do some writing about theology and complicity in a more modern and accessible context.

After completing my MAR at the Institute of Sacred Music, I’m planning to pursue doctoral studies in the History of Art, continuing my concentration in the art and material culture of the Middle Ages. Beyond that—we’ll see! It would be a joy to spend my time teaching or working with objects, but I’m open to all of the ways I might pursue those things, in and especially beyond the academic world.

How do you spend your time when you are not studying?

Recently, I’ve been trying to fall in love with reading novels again; Connie Willis’ beautiful science-fiction tributes to the joys and heartbreaks of history have been sustenance for many long train rides. I spent most of the pandemic living in New Orleans, where I enjoyed long walks around Bayou St. John, where the sunsets are magical and sherbet-colored and there are often pelicans diving. My partner converted to Catholicism this past Easter, so a lot of my down time has been theological, too; re-encountering or encountering aspects of the tradition through the lens of her curiosity. Lately I’ve been in Connecticut full-time, so I’m learning to love my new home through long walks among the changing leaves, glorious fresh bread from the bakery next-door, and trying to get to know my neighbors.

Any other comments?

My thanks to Theological Horizons, for their support of graduate students, to my advisor at the ISM, Vasileios Marinis, and to Nicole Paxton Sullo, who kindly edited an early iteration of this paper.