Carol Symes is an Associate Professor of history and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the history department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she has won the top teaching award in the College of Liberal Arts and Science. Her main areas of study include medieval Europe, especially France and England; cultural history; history of information media and communication technologies; history of theatre. Her first book was A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in Medieval Arras (2007). (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007).