Affiliated scholar biography - Ruth Caldwell
Ruth Caldwell fell in love with Italy at age fourteen, when she accompanied a study tour led by her father, a professor of history. The Mediterranean climate reminded her of her Southern California home, but she also became enthralled by the visual beauty of Florence, Assisi, and Venice, and the profound stories of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and so many other medieval and Renaissance figures that the group studied.
After graduating from the University of Southern California summa cum laude, she spent two years as a Fulbright scholar at the Center for Studies of Medieval Civilization in Poitiers, France. During graduate studies for the Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, she broadened her interests to quite an extent, including eighteenth century philosophers as well as Dada and surrealist poetry. She has published or given a paper in almost every significant period of French or Italian literature.
Drawing from her wide-ranging and interdisciplinary interests, at Luther College she has taught such courses as: “Language, Faith, Money and Women,” an interdisciplinary course for juniors and seniors; “Dante’s Divine Comedy,” a first year student seminar; and “Making Peace and Breaking Bread,” an interdisciplinary study abroad course in Italy and France. In addition to organizing short-term study abroad courses, she was the resident director of Luther College’s semester program in Malta. She also teaches language courses in French and Italian (she has a M.A. in Italian from Middlebury College) and has considerable experience in spoken language assessment in her work with Advanced Placement and oral proficiency testing.
She is looking forward to sharing the experience of Florence with students and is eager to help them join in dialogue with thinkers of the past as well as students’ host families and other contemporary Italians.