Jamie Kreiner

While at CASBS, Jamie Kreiner will research the archaeological evidence of the historical relationship between everyday technologies and habits of thinking in Late Antiquity, to spotlight how humans’ things were tied to their thinking and how those relationships evolved. This will be in tandem with methodological approaches to the scientific literature on cognitive tools, with the goal of writing a book that communicates to academic and general audiences the value of premodern cognitive practices for understanding our own habits of thinking today. Kreiner also plans to co-author an article with her collaborator that establishes new methodologies, theoretical pathways, and payoffs for historicizing cognitive practices.

Kreiner is an historian of the early Middle Ages, and her research explores how early medieval culture can point to alternate realities of the human experience while also revealing surprising common ground with the present. Kreiner has written about politicos, monks, and pigs; and her current research explores the interface between cognitive science and history.  She is professor and Robert and Dorothy Wellman Chair in Medieval History at the University of California, Los Angeles.