Philippe Buc
Invited Researcher of DEA Programme Stay in France: from September 1st to October 7th, 2019


Trained in France and the United States, BA in History (Swarthmore College); MA (Political Science, Medieval Japanese History, European Medieval History, U. of California, Berkeley); Master of Arts (Paris I); PhD in History (EHESS, Paris), Philippe Buc made the start of his career at Stanford University (1990-2011). Since 2011 he is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Vienna (Austria).
The project
Title: Civil wars in the medieval West and in medieval Japan: Figures of the traitor and fates of the dead
Keywords: Biblical Exegesis / Power and Religion / Religion and Armed Violence / History and Anthropology / Comparative History
Selected publications
- L'ambiguïté du Livre: Prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de la Bible au Moyen Age, avec une préface par Jacques Le Goff (Collection Théologie historique 95; Paris: Beauchesne, 1994).
- The Dangers of Ritual. Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); trad. française Dangereux ritual (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France: 2003; traduction polonaise (Varsovie, 2011) (avec une postface spécifique).
- Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror: Christianity, Violence, and the West (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2015), trad. allemande Heiliger Krieg (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2015); trad française, La Guerre Sainte (Paris: Gallimard, 2017), avec une postface en histoire comparée; trad. arabe الحرب المقدسة، الاستشهاد والإرهاب أشكال العنف المسيحية في الغرب (Alharb almuqaddassa, alistichhad wal irhab - Achkal alonf almassihiya fil gharb) for Harmoon Publishers (Markaz Harmoon lil-dirassat al mu'assira-Dar Maysaloon, Doha, 2019) avec une preface comparant islams et christianisme occidental dans leurs rapports à la violence armée.
- Éditeur d´un dossier sur les “Cultures de la guerre” dans Questiones Medii Aevi Novae 21 (2016).
- "Crusade and eschatology: Holy war fostered and inhibited", MIÖG 125 (2017), 304-339.
- "Evangelical Fundamentalist fiction and medieval crusade epics", sous presse aux Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes 37 (2019).
- “What is order? In the aftermath of the "feudal transformation" debates”, Francia 46 (2019), 289-300.
- “Religion and war, historically compared: the Japanese Far East and the European Far West in the longue durée of two Middle Ages”, à paraître, Atsushi Egawa, Benoît Grévin, Marc Smith, Megumi Tanabe, Hanno Wijsman, dirs., Les échanges culturels au Moyen-Âge: du dialogue à la construction des cultures. Actes du colloque international tenu à Nara, Japon, les 18 et 19 novembre 2017 / Cultural Exchange in the Middle Ages. From Dialogue to the Construction of Cultures. Proceedings of the International Colloquium held at Nara, Japan, 18-19 November 2017 (Paris: 2019).
- “Eschatologies of the sword, compared: Latin Christianity, Islam(s), and Japanese Buddhism”, sous presse, Veronika Wieser & Vincent Eltschinger, dirs., Making Ends Meet: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the End of Times in Medieval Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (Berlin: 2019).
Research topics
anthropology
medieval history
power
religion
violence
Discover more researchers

Winner
Andil Gosine
Invited researcher of the 2025 DEA Programme
Winner
María Mercedes Di Virgilio
Invited researcher of the 2025 DEA Programme

Winner
Imen Bdour
Laureate of the 2025 Atlas Programme

Winner
Lucrecia Santibanez
Researcher in residence at the Maison Suger | July 2025-January 2026
See all researchers
Published at 4 September 2019