About the IMS

Various IMS Program Posters

The Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico offers a variety of programs dedicated to university and civic outreach, as well as to the enrichment of scholarship, teaching, and research in the civilizations of medieval Europe and its neighbors from 500 to 1500. Through special student opportunities and advanced research activities, and through its links with graduate degree programs offered by UNM departments, the Institute is committed to furthering the transmission and preservation of our rich heritage from the Middle Ages. Our programs operate under the philosophy that the study of medieval culture provides a powerful vantage point from which to evaluate our own and other cultures and to reflect on the complexity of human behavior and institutions.

The Institute promotes the University of New Mexico as a major research institution in the humanities and as the central intellectual resource for its civic community. Each year IMS hosts a week-long Spring Lecture Series that brings internationally distinguished scholars to Albuquerque to present on a set of topics organized around a central theme. Every spring semester, IMS sponsors a leading expert in Old Norse language and literature who offers a course on Viking Mythology as the Institute’s Visiting Scholar in Medieval Scandinavian Studies. The IMS Director offers a biennial intensive summer course in Paleography and Codicology that draws graduate students from across North America. IMS has also developed an Outreach Program to the Secondary Schools that has been nationally and internationally recognized for its efforts to advance the study of the Middle Ages in local high schools. IMS is dedicated to furthering interdisciplinary and multicultural work by challenging the conventional separation of existing intellectual disciplines and by offering the broadest possible approach to research in the humanities.