Duke University Scholar Honored for Her Book on Religious History

Caroline Bruzelius, the Anne M. Cogan Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University, has been selected as the inaugural winner of the Pelikan Award from Yale University Press. The award recognizes the best book published by the press on the subject of religion over the past two years. The award is named after the Jaroslav Pelikan, a former Yale University professor and a scholar of church history, who died in 2006.

Professor Bruzelius is being honored for her book Preaching, Building, and Burying: Friars in the Medieval City (Yale University Press, 2014). Jennifer Banks, executive editor in religion at Yale University Press, said, “The selecting committee at Yale was deeply impressed by Caroline Bruzelius’ remarkable book, which studies how medieval friars influenced the growth and transformation of medieval buildings and urban spaces.”

Dr. Bruzelius is a 1971 graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale University.