Alumni Spotlight
Adrienne Chaparro
Adrienne Chaparro, Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies (AG'13)
A Medievalist in Training Goes to the Source
Fulbright Recognition Opens Up a Year of Opportunity at the University of York
A blockbuster action film might seem an unlikely starting point for a career as a medievalist. But for Adrienne Chaparro, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with its quest for an earlier-age’s relics, was a very real source of inspiration. (In fact, it’s an origin story that she shares with numerous fellow medievalists, she says.)
For Chaparro, who received a graduate certificate in Museum Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2013, the Middle Ages are far enough in the past that they are “a little bit strange to us,” prompting deep inquiry about why the people of the time thought and acted as they did. Still, that time is “not so far in the past that it feels alien or hard to connect with,” she says.
Chaparro has connected meaningfully with the medieval aesthetic. Her career in art history and curatorial work is a response to her long-held curiosity about the art and objects of the Middle Ages, which she finds “endlessly interesting.” Her passion for these objects led her to museum studies at Tufts; she credits Tufts with having immersed her in the inner day-to-day workings of museums. “The program gave me the knowledge and the vocabulary that set me up well for a career in the field,” she recalls.
Now Chaparro is working toward a master’s degree in medieval art history at the University of York, and recently received a Fulbright Special Study/Research Award, from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She is one of 13 former Tufts students who were selected for Fulbright awards during the 2024-2025 academic year and who are currently studying and researching across the globe.
One of the main drivers for Chaparro wanting to study medieval art in York during her Fulbright year? It’s one of Europe’s most well-preserved medieval cities; the city’s large cathedral, the York Minster, has roughly half of medieval glass in England.
“I can study medieval art in situ, in the original historical sites—from the cathedral to the smaller parish churches—for which the art was made,” she says. “I couldn’t have this experience anywhere in the United States.”
Though chronologically distant, medievalism has various resonances with contemporary life, Chaparro finds. She cites troubling linkages with, for example, white nationalist movements that use an “imagined history of an all-white, Western European Middle Ages” to justify racist ideology. She cites the work of scholarly organizations like the Medieval Academy of America to reject those efforts by deepening our understanding of the era as a time period of diversity and interconnection, in which cultures and kingdoms from around the world readily encountered and influenced each other.
Among the numerous positive associations Chaparro draws between the medieval era and our own include the artist Kehinde Wiley’s use of Gothic art and architecture, The Lord of the Rings, and the eight seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO.
“Once you start looking for evidence of the Middle Ages, you can’t unsee it,” says Chaparro. “You find it everywhere.”
Chaparro considers the support from the Office of Scholar Development at Tufts critical to her successful Fulbright application. “They were so encouraging. but without overstepping,” she says. “They made my materials stronger. I don’t think I would be here this year if I hadn’t had their help.”
After her year in York, Chaparro plans to pursue curatorial roles in museums or similar institutions, developing exhibitions. “Doing object research is really fun, so I hope to continue to have access to these objects—hopefully at a place that lets me touch the things,” Chaparro says with a smile.
Photo Caption: Chaparro addresses her fellow students while leading a discussion about the Chapter House doorway and the late-13th century trumeau sculpture (the sculpture between two portals) of the Virgin and Child, before which she stands.