Shami Ghosh

I was born in India and spent the twenty-one years of my life in New Delhi; I have since lived mainly in Toronto (seventeen years), with some years also in London, Cambridge, Mass., and Oxford, and shorter periods in Munich, Hanoi, and Lindi (Tanzania).

I started off thinking I was a musician, then became a Germanist, completed my PhD as a multidisciplinary medievalist, spent the next decade focusing on economic history, and am now returning to Middle High German literature (without abandoning peasants, however). After studying at King's College London, Harvard, and CMS, I was a postdoc at the University of Leicester, at Magdalen College, Oxford, and at PIMS; I returned to CMS as tenure-track faculty in 2016 and have been tenured since 2021. I teach Latin, Diplomatics, historical methods and theory; I also teach Directed Reading courses (and undergraduate Independent Studies or theses) on various historical and literary subjects, as well as on some of the older continental Germanic languages. 

My students think I'm very scary about matters related to punctuation, formatting, and split infinitives. When I'm not scaring them about these things, they seem to like me: I can't think of any other reason why for a while I ended up passing my self-imposed limit of supervising nine dissertations and got up to twelve. (I am fortunately back to single digits and intend to stay below seven!) I supervise or have supervised subjects ranging from Old Norse literature to the self-representation of late-medieval queens to the ideology of evangelisation in the early middle ages to late-medieval women religious. My supervisees have published or have papers forthcoming in journals such as Viator, Review of English Studies, Mediaeval Studies, and Journal of Medieval History among others, and have a high success rate in obtaining awards, scholarships, and postdoctoral fellowships, including from SSHRC, the British Academy, and the Medieval Academy of America. 

Having been thoroughly traumatised by the postdoctoral job-search period, not least because I got no or very misleading advice on what it was all about, I am deeply committed to professional development and was one of the leads in creating our mandatory course on that subject (MST1003), and I am always available to any student wishing to talk about what it means to get into or be in this profession. 

My life revolves around my daughters Heidi (dog), and Farzaneh (human). Heidi is a frequent visitor in my classes and appointments with students, and condescends to receive tokens of affection (scritches behind the ears are particularly welcome) when she visits the Great Hall. My cakes have long brought solace to students in various classes (and faculty and staff and possibly hangers-on from other departments), and I might even bring my nutella+chocolate chip brioche in again (and yes, a genuine French person who is an outstanding baker certified it as brioche!). Pictures of fuzziness and marine mammals, (dark) chocolate, and baked goods are always gratefully received. (But NB: raisins are instruments of the devil, and dried fruits are in general evil.) I share recipes cheerfully with those who ask, as well as tips on things to eat and do in Toronto, a city I have loved as home for over two decades. 

Unless I absolutely have to, I do not knowingly speak to people who cannot agree that dogs are people too, or are at least agnostic about this. (And cats, and other non-human animals, and trees and plants, etc.: everything has a spirit and humans are closer to being the worst-spirited than the best-spirited of all creatures.)

PLEASE NOTE: APART FROM THOSE TO WHOM I HAVE ALREADY COMMITTED MYSELF I AM NOT TAKING ON NEW PHD SUPERVISEES.

Courses

MST1110H Diplomatics and diplomatic editing.
MST3241H Everyday life in medieval Europe.
MST3231H Clio's workshop: history and historiographical methods.
MST1370H From farm to market: social and economic transformation in the Middle Ages.
MST1327H Death, dying, and society in medieval northern Europe. 
Guide to reference works for Medieval Latin.
Distractions