Home      Editing Services      Find Me

Kent Navalesi, Ph.D.

Independent Scholar

Email

Kent Navalesi received his PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2020 and has since been a Postdoctoral Scholar at Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky (2021-2022). He is currently an independent scholar pursuing research on the role of narrative and rhetoric in the religious cultures of the late antique Mediterranean. His current monograph project, The Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus: Hagiography and the Laity in Sixth-Century Gaul, seeks to understand how the telling of miracle stories both responded to and conditioned the worldview of the Christian laity in the sixth century and is the first book-length study of Fortunatus' biographies. Throughout his graduate and professional career, Kent has taught several courses on the premodern world that seek to foster students' ability to read critically and engage empathetically with foreign ways and beliefs.

• HON 140 Knowledge and Society
• HON 151 Women and Gender in Pre-Modern Europe
• HON 151 Religion and Daily Life in Late Antiquity
• HON 151 Relics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• HIST 141 Western Civilization I
• HIST 245 Women and Gender in Pre-Modern Europe
• HIST 247 Medieval Europe
• HIST 498 Late Antiquity

• HIST 100 The Global Middle Ages
• HIST 141 Western Civilization I
• HIST 142 European Civ. 1750-Present
• HIST 241 Roman Empire
• CLCV 115 Mythology of Greece and Rome

The Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus: Hagiography and the Laity in Sixth-Century Gaul. Amsterdam University Press (under contract).

2025

Alameh, S., BouJaoude, S., and Navalesi, K., "Social and Cultural Embeddedness of Science in Middle and High School Textbooks Across the Middle East and the United States of America," in M. Shahat, S. Al-Balushi, and H. Fischer, eds., Cross-cultural Comparison of Science Education (IGI Global Scientific Publishing).

“The Queen versus the Bishop: Marriage, Death, and Church Politics in Venantius Fortunatus’ Vita sancti Hilarii.” Journal of Late Antiquity (under review)

2022

‘Written on the Parchment of the Heart’: Memory, Writing and Pastoral Care in the Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus,” Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History 49.2 (2022): 185-206.

2025

“Review of Benjamin Wheaton, Venantius Fortunatus and Gallic Christianity: Theology in the Writings of an Italian Émigré in Merovingian Gaul. Brill, 2022,” Speculum 100.3 (2025): 881.

2019

“Book Note: Stefan Esders, Yitzhak Hen, et. al., The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources. Bloomsbury, 2019,” Ancient Jew Review

The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

• The Life of Hilary

• The Life of Germanus

• The Life of Radegund

• The Life of Marcellus

• The Life of Albinus

Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters

• A Letter from Bishop Nicetius of Trier

2024

"The Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus and Their Possible Homiletic Nachleben" International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 9-11, 2024.

Abra Cadaver? Female Asceticism and Political Crisis in Venantius Fortunatus' Vita Hilarii" International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 1-4, 2024.

2018

“In Cordis Membrana: Memory, Writing and Living Tradition in the Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 2-5, 2018.

Session Chair: “Platinum Latin: Manuscripts and Editing” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 10-13, 2018.

2017

“Lay Piety and Religious Outsiders in Venantius Fortunatus’ Prose Hagiography” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 3-6, 2017.

“Ad aedificationem plebis: Lay Piety and Pastoral Care in Venantius Fortunatus’ Prose Hagiography” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 11-14, 2017.

2015

“Pudore mota muliebri: Women and Pastoral Care in Venantius Fortunatus' Prose Hagiography” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, July 6-9, 2015.

“Venantius Fortunatus' Treatment of Women in his Prose Hagiography” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 14-17, 2015.

2013

“The Prose Vitae of Venantius Fortunatus and Cult Formation in Sixth-Century Gaul” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 9-12, 2013