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Maya Maskarinec

Associate Professor of History
Maya Maskarinec
Email maskarin@usc.edu

Research & Practice Areas

Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, Rome, urban history, hagiography, historiography, legal history

Biography

Maya Maskarinec is a historian of late antique and early medieval Europe and the Mediterranean with an emphasis on the city of Rome as an interlocutor across geographical, cultural and chronological divides. Her research interests include urban history, hagiography and historiography, legal history, and the afterlife of Rome’s Christian and classical heritage.

Education

  • Ph.D. Medieval History, University of California, Los Angeles, 2015
  • M.A. Medieval History, University of California, Los Angeles, 2011
  • A.B. Classics, Princeton University, 2007

  • Research Specialties

    Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, Rome, urban history, hagiography, historiography, legal history

  • Book

    • Maskarinec, M. (2018). City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book Chapters

    • Maskarinec, M. (2023). Where are the Women? Foreign Saints and the Construction of a Masculine Rome. Importreliquien in Rom von Damasus I. bis Paschalis I. Akten der Internationalen Konferenz Deutsches pp. 37–56. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2022). Invoking Gregory on the Caelian in Medieval Rome: A Study of an Inscription at SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Visions of Medieval History pp. 335–56. Turnhout: Brepols.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2020). Clinging to Empire in Jordanes’ Romana. Historiographies of Identity, vol. 2 pp. 71–93. Turnhout: Brepols.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2020). In the Shadow of Rome: After Empire in the late-10th-century Chronicle of Benedict of Monte Soratte. Using and Not Using the Past. pp. 56–76. London: Routledge.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2017). Mobilizing Sanctity: Pius II and the Head of Andrew in Rome. Authority and Spectacle. pp. 186-202. London: Routledge.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2014). Foreign Saints at Home in Eighth- and Ninth-Century Rome: The Patrocinia of Diaconiae, Xenodochia and Greek Monasteries. Cuius Patrocinio Tota Gaudet Regio. pp. 21-37. Zagreb: Hagiotheca.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2013). Who were the Romans? Shifting Scripts of Romanness in Early Medieval Italy. Post-Roman Transitions. pp. 297-363. Turnhout: Brepols.

    Journal Article

    • Maskarinec, M. (2024). Law and Spiritual Sanctions: Asserting the Stability of Pro Anima Donation Charters in Late 10th- and 11th-Century Central Italy. Journal of Medieval History. Vol. 50 (1), pp. 20–46.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2022). Annulling Inherited Contracts: Legal Possibilities and Strategies at Early Medieval Italian Monasteries. Frühmittelalterliche Studien. Vol. 56 (1), pp. 189–216.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2021). Citation of Law as a Legal Argument in an early eleventh-century breve from Farfa. Reti Medievali. Vol. 22 (2), pp. 1–35.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2021). Monastic Archives and the Law: Legal Strategies at Farfa and Monte Amiata at the Turn of the Millennium. Early Medieval Europe. Vol. 29 (3), pp. 331–365.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2021). A Question of Tradition: Catholic Reformers on Gregory the Great’s Beard. The Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol. 51 (3), pp. 651–686.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2020). Nuns as Sponsae Christi: The Legal Status of the Medieval Oblates of Tor de’ Specchi. Journal of Ecclesiastical History. pp. 280–299.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2019). Legal Expertise at a Late-Tenth-Century Monastery in Central Italy, or Disputing Property Donations and the History of Law in Benedict of Monte Soratte’s Chronicle. Speculum. Vol. 94 (4), pp. 1033–69.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2019). Why Remember Ratchis? Medieval Monastic Memory and the Lombard Past. Archivio Storico Italiano. Vol. 177 (1), pp. 3–57.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2018). Hagiography as History and the Enigma of the Quattro Coronati. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana. Vol. 93, pp. 345–409.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2018). Saints for all Christendom: Naturalizing the Alexandrian Saints Cyrus and John in 7th- to 13th-century Rome 71. Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Vol. 71, pp. 337–65.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2016). Ferdinand Gregorovius versus Theodor Mommsen on the City of Rome and Its Legends. History of the Humanities. Vol. 1 (1), pp. 101-128.
    • Maskarinec, M. (2015). The Carolingian Afterlife of the Damasan Inscriptions. Early Medieval Europe. Vol. 23 (2), pp. 129-60.
    • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Recipient, 2021-2022
    • Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Recipient, 2020-2021
    • Hagiography Society Book Prize (City of Saints), Fall 2019
    • CAORC Mediterranean Regional Research Fellowship, 2017-2018
    • Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2014-2015
    • American Academy at Rome, Phyllis G. Gordan Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize, 2013-2014
    • Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, 2010 – 2013
    • Fulbright Award, U.S. Student Fulbright Fellowship to Austria, 2007-2008

  • Editorships and Editorial Boards

    • Member, Editorial Board, Early Medieval Europe, 2020 –
    • Member, Board of Review Editors, The Medieval Review, 2021 – 2023
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