Our people

Dr Michael David Barbezat

Research Fellow
Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Areas of expertise: medieval and early modern history; history of sexuality; medievalism; LGBTQIA+ history and culture; medieval European religious, intellectual, and cultural history; history of Christianity; history of emotions; medieval heresy; and magic

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8795-1148

Phone: +61 3 9230 8395

Email: michael.barbezat@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

Select publications

• 2018 Burning Bodies: Communities, Eschatology, and the Punishment of Heresy in the Middle Ages. (Cornell University Press).

Edited volumes

• (2019) Michael D. Barbezat and Anne M. Scott. Fluid Bodies: Rethinking Expressions of Bodies and Their Fluids in Pre-Modern Literature, Theology, and Art.  (Arc Humanities Press).

Journal articles

• (2025) “The Christmas when All the Sodomites Died: The Life and Significance of a Strange Medieval Legend.” Journal of the History of Sexuality1: 38–62.
• (2024) With Miles Pattenden. “The Cult of Gay Relics and Queer Medievalism in 1980s Sydney.” Past & Present. Advance Articles (2024).
• (2024) “Demons Only Virgins Can See: Divination with Child Mediums as a Medieval Type of Clerical Child Abuse.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 75.1: 15–40.
• (2022) “An Herb for Speaking to the Dead: The Magical and Liturgical Life of Hyssop in the Latin Middle Ages.” Church History 91.3: 492–512.
• (2022) “Converse with the Dead as a Technology of the Self: Agreements to Return from the Otherworld in Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelations.” Journal of Medieval History 48.1: 32–56.
• (2018) "He Doubted That These Things Actually Happened': Knowing the Other World in the Tractatus de Purgatorio sancti Patricii." History of Religions 57.4, 321-347.
• (2016) "Bodies of Spirit and Bodies of Flesh: The Significance of the Sexual Practices Attributed to Heretics from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century." Journal of the History of Sexuality 25.3, 387-419.
• (2014) "The Fires of Hell and the Burning of Heretics in the Accounts of the Executions at Orleans in 1022." Journal of Medieval History 40.4, 399-420.
• (2013) "In a Corporeal Flame: The Materiality of Hellfire Before the Resurrection in Six Latin Authors." Viator 44.3, 1-20.

Chapters

• (2025) “Love and Medieval Communities.” In The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Love,Volume 2: A Cultural History of Love in the Middle Ages, edited by Riccardo Cristiani and Barbara H. Rosenwein, 89–115. Bloomsbury.
• (2024) “Medieval Happiness Reconsidered.” In The Routledge History of Happiness, edited by Katie Barclay, Darrin M. McMahon, and Peter N. Stearns, 119–132. Routledge.
• (2019) The Corporeal Orientation: A Medieval and Early Modern Framework for Understanding Deviance Through the Object(s) of Love." In The Routledge History of Emotions in Europe: 1100-1700, edited by Susan Broomhall and Andrew Lynch, 119-132 (Routledge). 
• (2019) "Augustine on the Flesh of the Resurrection Body in the De fide et symbolo: Origen, Manicheanism, and Augustine's Developing Thought Regarding Human Physical Perfection." In Fluid Bodies: Rethinking Expressions of Bodies and Their Fluids in Pre-Modern Literature, Theology, and Art, edited by Michael D. Barbezat and Anne M. Scott, 175-192 (Arc Humanities Press).
• (2019) "Desire for Complete Enjoyment: The Use of the Latin Affectus in Hugh of St. Victor's De archa Noe." In Before Emotion: The Language of Feeling, 400-1800, edited by Juanita Feros Ruys, Michael Champion, and Kirk Essary 76-85. (Routledge).
• (2019) "A Conjuration of Patrick: A Legacy of Doubt and Imagining in Hamlet." In Hamlet and Emotions, Paul Megna, Bríd Phillips, and R. S. White, 41-59. (Palgrave Macmillan).

Parliamentary Submissions

• (2021) “The Dangers of Elevating Social Ethos to Religious Orthodoxy,” Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 and Related Bills, co-authored with Timothy W. Jones and Miles Pattenden (17^thDecember).

Appointments and affiliations

• 2025–Present: Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
• 2019–2025: Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
• 2018-2019: Honorary Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
• 2015-2018: Postdoctoral Fellow (Research Associate), Centre for the History of Emotions, University of Western Australia, Perth

Editorial roles

• 2021–Present: Society for the History of Emotions (SHE) Council Ordinary Member
• 2015-2018: Local Editorial Board, Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Accolades and awards

• 2017: Nomination: 2017 UWA Faculty of Arts Teaching and Service Award
• 2008-2013: University of Toronto Fellowship

Select Public engagement

• “The Christmas when All the Sodomites Died.” The Conversation, December 25, 2023.
• With Miles Pattenden, “Remembering Fabian LoSchiavo: Australian Nun, Social Activist, Religious Leader.” ABC Religion and Ethics, May 22, 2023.
• With Miles Pattenden, “Homosexual Suffering and Divine Love: A Reflection for World AIDS Day.” ABC Religion and Ethics, November 25, 2022.
• “‘Satanic Worship, Sodomy and Even Murder’: How Stranger Things Revived the American Satanic Panic of the 80s.” The Conversation, July 3, 2022.
• "'Pizzagate' and the Nocturnal Ritual Fantasy: Imaginary Cults, Fake News, and Real Violence." The Public Medievalist, May 4, 2017.
• “What We Do at the Ends of Things,” Histories of Emotion, March 31, 2017.