Scholars gathered at Saint Louis University last week for an international symposium on the Crusades. A series of medieval military campaigns conducted in the name of Christianity, the Crusades have attracted increasing attention from the academic community and are a specialty of SLU’s history department. Professors and graduate students from around the world attended the symposium to present their research and to discuss new perspectives on the Crusades. Thomas Madden, Ph.D., a professor in the History Department and expert on the Crusades, decided to push for the symposium last fall. “Medieval Studies is the jewel in the crown of humanities at SLU. It is something SLU is really known for. We wanted to bring a large number of people here, both professors and graduate students, to showcase our program. In addition, interest in the Crusades has increased greatly in recent years, and we wanted to bring scholars from around the world to share their research,” Madden said. According to Madden, the symposium was the largest conference on the Crusades ever to be held in North America. Scholars from more than 30 universities attended the conference. Some traveled from as far away as Cambridge University, the University of Tel Aviv and the University of Helsinki. There were also representatives from Duke University, New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as Ivy League institutions like Princeton University and Brown University. The conference began on the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 15, with a speech by SLU President Lawrence Biondi, S.J. It continued on Thursday and Friday with a series of free public lectures; in the second phase, a series of half-hour presentations open only to registered participants, scholars discussed their new research findings. There was also a banquet Saturday night and excursions to view the mosaics at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. “The conference presented us with a rich banquet of research. The papers on the Islamic response to the Crusades were particularly interesting. [Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith of Cambridge University], for instance, discussed how memories of the Crusades-though often distorted-have affected modern politics, including very recent developments with Osama bin Laden,” Madden said. SLU’s namesake, the French King Louis IX, participated in the Crusades. Organizers devoted a special plenary lecture to tell the story of the 13th-century saint. “There was an amazingly good lecture on St. Louis and perspectives on his campaigns and kingship, including his canonization process,” Madden said.