Laura Ackerman Smoller, Ph.D.

Laura Smoller, a Little Rock native, graduated from Hall High School and attended Dartmouth College.  She received her Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1991 and subsequently taught 6 years at Stanford University before returning home to Little Rock. 

At UALR, Dr. Smoller teaches courses on the history of disease, the history of apocalyptic thought, and the history of magic and science. She is the author of History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly (Princeton University Press, 1994) as well as numerous articles on late medieval astrology, eschatology, and miracles.  She is currently working on a book entitled The Saint and the Chopped-Up Baby:  The Cult of Vincent Ferrer and the Religious Life of the Later Middle Ages, work that has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.    click here.