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Status: PhD Candidate

Adviser: Marcus Bull

Graduate Email: robcwill@live.unc.edu

Education

PhD Candidate: UNC Chapel Hill (2021-pres.)
History (Working Dissertation Title: “Martial Materiality, Masculinity, and the Expression of Knightly Identity 1350-1425” Chair: Marcus Bull)
M.A.: UNC Chapel Hill (2021)
History (Thesis: “A Versatile Steel Skin: The Representations and Roles of Armor in Late Fourteenth-Century Texts and Images” Chair: Marcus Bull)
B.A.: Rice University (2019)
History (Thesis: “The Knight as an Expert in Arms: Challenging Narratives of Knightly Quixotism and Obsolescence from 1400 to 1430” Chair: Maya Soifer Irish)
Anthropology (Capstone: “Lionized in Stone: Examining Knightly Militancy and Individuality through Late Medieval English Tomb Effigies” Chair: Jeffrey Fleisher)
Medieval Studies

Research Interests

My work primarily focuses on the late medieval martial aristocracy of England and France, including their participation in the Spanish, Italian, and Cypriot theaters of the Hundred Years War. My research interests include narrative theory, military history, gender theory in premodern contexts, and, most of all, approaches to cultural history. I am especially interested in material culture (notably, armor and animals) and how objects appear in narratives to lend meaning to texts.

Notable Awards and Fellowships

  • Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, UNC History Department (UNC 2024)
  • ARPA Graduate Degree Completion Grant (UNC 2021)
  • Recent Public Engagements

  • Paper: “Beasts and Bascinets: Masculine Self Fashioning through Armor and Animals in Late Medieval Combat” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK (Summer 2024)
  • Guest Lecture, “Martial Materiality, Masculinity, and the Expression of Knightly Identity 1350-1425” The O’Brien Undergraduate Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Rice University, Houston, TX (Spring 2022)
  • Paper, “A Versatile Steel Skin: The Representations and Roles of Armor in Late Fourteenth-Century Texts and Images” Haskins Conference New Research Panel, UNC Chapel Hill, NC (Fall 2021)