Caroline Bynum

Caroline Walker Bynum (born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1941) is an American Medieval scholar. She is a University Professor emerita at Columbia University and Professor emerita of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was the first woman to be appointed University Professor at Columbia. She is a former Dean of Columbia's School of General Studies. She served as President of the American Historical Association for 1996.

Bynum received a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1962 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. Her honors include the Jefferson Lecture, a MacArthur Fellowship, and fourteen honorary degrees including degrees from Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. Bynum's work has focused on the way medieval people understood the nature of the human body and its physicality in the context of larger theological questions and spiritual pursuits.

Caroline Bynum is a 1986 MacArthur Fellow.