{{Short description|American historian (1937–2024)}}{{Infobox academic | birth_date = {{birth date|1937|7|27}} | birth_place = [[Brooklyn]], New York | death_date = {{death date and age|2024|4|9|1937|7|27}} | death_place = [[New Haven]], Connecticut | occupation = Historian | awards = {{ubl|[[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (1989–1990)|[[Haskins Medal]] (1998)}} | education = {{ubl|[[Smith College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] 1958)|[[Yale University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]] 1959, [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] 1965)}} | academic_advisors = [[Roland Bainton]] and [[Jaroslav Pelikan]] | discipline = Historian | sub_discipline = {{ubl|[[Medieval history]]|[[Intellectual history]]}} | workplaces = [[Oberlin College]] (1963–2001) }} '''Marcia L. Colish''' (July 27, 1937 – April 9, 2024) was an American historian who specialized in [[medieval]] [[intellectual history]]. From 1963 to 2001 she taught at [[Oberlin College]], where she became the Frederick B. Artz Professor of History and retired emeritus. From 2001 onwards she pursued historical research at [[Yale University]]. She won a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (1989–1990) and the [[Haskins Medal]] (1998) for her book on [[Peter Lombard]]. She was a Fellow (from 1988) and President (1991–1992) of the [[Medieval Academy of America]].
==Early life and education== Marcia Colish was born on July 27, 1937<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 August 2025 |title=Colish, Marcia L. |url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n83006832.html |access-date=19 February 2026 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref> in [[Brooklyn]], New York, the daughter of Dr. Samuel and Daisy K. Colish. She gained her BA from [[Smith College]] in 1958. She continued to [[Yale University]] for her MA (1959) and PhD (1965), studying there with historians of Christianity [[Roland Bainton]] and [[Jaroslav Pelikan]].<ref name="NYT">{{cite web | title=Obituary: Marcia Colish | newspaper=New York Times | via=legacy.com | url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/marcia-colish-obituary?id=54926822 | access-date=2024-09-11 }}</ref>
== Career == After a short period teaching at [[Skidmore College]],<ref name="NYT" /> Colish joined Oberlin College in 1963. She specialized in [[medieval]] [[intellectual history]].<ref name="NYT" /> She was a member of the School of Historical Studies of the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] at Princeton 1986–1987.<ref name="NYT" /> She was made a Fellow of the [[Medieval Academy of America]] in 1988, and she served as President of the Academy 1991–1992.<ref name="NYT" /> She used a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] in 1989–1990 to work on her book on [[Peter Lombard]], for which she won the [[Haskins Medal]] in 1998.<ref name="NYT" /> Yale Graduate School awarded her its [[Wilbur Cross Medal]] in 1993.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Marcia L. Colish |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/marcia-l-colish/ |access-date=20 February 2026 |website=Guggenheim Fellowship}}</ref> She was a fellow at the [[Woodrow Wilson Center]] 1994–1995.<ref name=":0" /> In the 1960s she led the campaign to abolish a nepotism rule at Oberlin that prevented both members of a couple from serving on the faculty.<ref name="Oberlin">{{cite web | title=Marcia Colish, Frederick B. Artz Emerita Professor of History, Dies at 86 | website=Oberlin College | date=April 18, 2024 | url=https://www.oberlin.edu/news/marcia-colish-frederick-b-artz-emerita-professor-history-dies-86 | access-date=2024-09-11 }}</ref> In the early 1990s she helped lead the campaign to reform Oberlin's sexual harassment policy.<ref name="Oberlin" />
On retirement from Oberlin, Colish moved to [[Guilford, Connecticut|Guilford]] to be nearer to [[Long Island Sound]] and Yale University. She continued to pursue research as a fellow at Yale. A 2002 symposium on her work, held at the [[Claremont Graduate School]],<ref name="NYT" /> resulted in a ''[[festschrift]]'' published in 2010.<ref>{{cite book | editor1= Cary J. Nederman | editor2=Nancy van Deusen | editor3=E. Ann Matter | editor3-link=E. Ann Matter | title=Mind Matters: Studies of Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual History in Honour of Marcia Colish | year=2009 | publisher= Brepols N.V | isbn=9782503527567 }}</ref>
She died on April 9, 2024, in [[New Haven]], Connecticut, leaving her body to the [[Yale University Medical School]].<ref name=Oberlin/>
==Works== * ''The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge'' Yale UP, 1968; 2nd rev. ed., University of Nebraska Press, 1983. * ''The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages'', 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1985; rev. paperback ed., 1990. * ''Peter Lombard'', 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994. * ''Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-1400''. Yale UP, 1997; paperback ed., 1999; new printing, 2003. Italian trans., 2001; Chinese trans., 2009. * ''Remapping Scholasticism''. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2000. * ''Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man''. University of Notre Dame Press, 2005; paperback ed., 2005. * ''Studies in Scholasticism''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. * ''The Fathers and Beyond: Church Fathers between Ancient and Medieval Thought''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. * ''Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates''. 2014.
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colish, Marcia}} [[Category:1937 births]] [[Category:2024 deaths]] [[Category:American medievalists]] [[Category:American women medievalists]] [[Category:Intellectual historians]] [[Category:Yale University alumni]] [[Category:Oberlin College faculty]] [[Category:Yale University faculty]] [[Category:Smith College alumni]] [[Category:Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America]]