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Roberta Magnusson

Roberta Magnusson

Associate Professor

Roberta Magnusson.

rmagnusson@ou.edu 
DAHT 822 


  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Professor Magnusson is the author of Water Technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire that draws on insights from environmental, technological, legal, social, and cultural history and makes use of French, German, Italian, and Latin sources. She is currently completing a project on infrastructure sustainability and urban resilience in medieval England, c.1200-1600. This examines how towns not only built but maintained public works (such as bridges, city walls, streets, water systems, and port facilities) in a time of climatic, demographic, economic, religious, and technological change. Professor Magnusson is an award-winning instructor who has received The Regents Award for Superior Teaching and has served as the History Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. She regularly offers courses on medieval history including a popular course on the Crusades, Medieval Women, and Medieval Italy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Editor. Volume 2: The Medieval Period (600-1450) for the forthcoming series A Cultural History of Technology. Bloomsbury. 


  • Medieval European and Italian History