Biography
Valerie Hotchkiss serves as the Azariah S. Root Director of Oberlin College Libraries. She has directed university and special collections libraries at SMU, the University of Illinois, and Vanderbilt University, always championing engagement, as well as serious collection building, access to resources, and teaching with primary sources. She earned her BA in Classics at the University of Cincinnati with study at the University of Tübingen. In addition to the MLS, she holds a PhD from Yale University in Medieval Studies.
Hotchkiss publishes in the areas of cultural history, religion, women’s studies, and the history of books and printing. Her books include: Clothes Make the Man: Female Transvestism in Medieval Europe (1996), English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to Milton (2008), and Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, a 4-volume work she coauthored with Jaroslav Pelikan (2003).