Rate My Professor Constant Mews

Constant Mews is an Emeritus Professor of History in the School of Philosophical, Historical and Indigenous Studies within the Faculty of Arts at Monash University. Born in Britain, he completed his later secondary education and initial university studies, earning a BA and MA in history from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He then pursued doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, UK, obtaining his DPhil. His early career included teaching British civilisation at the Université de Paris III from 1980 to 1985, while researching medieval thought under Jean Jolivet at the École pratique des hautes études en sciences religieuses. Subsequently, he served as a Leverhulme research fellow at the University of Sheffield, working with David Luscombe on editing Peter Abelard's writings. In July 1987, Mews joined Monash University as a Lecturer in the Department of History, advancing through the ranks and contributing to the development of the Centre for Religious Studies, where he served as Director. He has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1990 and 2000, St John's College, Cambridge, and has taught in Paris. Mews was Elected President of the Religious History Association in 2016 and served on the ERA Review Panel in 2014.

Mews' research centres on the evolution of medieval philosophy, theology, and religious thought within their cultural, political, and social contexts. He is a recognised authority on Peter Abelard and Heloise, having edited Abelard’s Theologia, and authored influential works including The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard (1999), Listen Daughter: The Speculum virginum and the Formation of Religious Women (2001), Abelard and Heloise (2005), and the annotated translation of Christine de Pizan’s Book of Peace (2008), which received the Algo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Scholarly Study of Literature from the Modern Language Association of America in 2009. He also won the NSW Premier’s Prize in Non-Australian History in 2000 for his contributions. His research extends to Hildegard of Bingen, gender impacts on religious thought, eco-theology, comparative religion, financial ethics, and medieval music theory. Current projects include Metempsychosis: An Interreligious History (2023–2026) as Chief Investigator, and he has led teams on topics such as Addressing Injustice in the Medieval Body Politic (2019–2023), communities of learning (2013–2017), and imagining poverty (2011–2016). Mews promotes religious literacy and interfaith dialogue in a multi-religious society.