Education
Princeton University.
Princeton University.
In 2012, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. He is consistently rated as one of the most popular professors at University of California, Los Angeles, and is honored in University of California, Los Angeles"s Covel Commons as a recipient of the University of California, Los Angeles Alumni Association"s Distinguished Teaching Award. Born in Cuba, Ruiz was active during the Cuban Revolution.
At age of 17, he fought against the regime of Fulgencio Batista.
When his friend was killed in 1960, he resigned from the revolution and was immediately imprisoned. Ruiz was eventually released after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) in order to make room for new prisoners of war.
He worked at various jobs including as a taxi driver for one year. Despite many obstacles, Ruiz finished his dissertation in the Graduate School of Princeton University by 1974.
Ruiz was a student of American medievalist Joseph R. Strayer and received his Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton University in 1974.
He has taught at Brooklyn College, the City University of New York Graduate Center, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Princeton University. In 1994 he was selected by the Carnegie Foundation as one of the four Outstanding Teachers of the Year in the United States. He served as chair of the University of California, Los Angeles Department of History from 2002–2005.
He has lectured in the United States of America, Spain, Italy, France, England, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
In 2007, Ruiz was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his project on festivals, rituals, and power in late medieval and early modern Spain. In 2008, Ruiz was named chair of the University of California, Los Angeles Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
He has published many books as well as dozens of articles in scholarly journals as well as reviews and smaller articles
Medieval Europe and the World : From Late Antiquity to Modernity, 400-1500 (2005) From Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society in the Late Middle Ages (2004) Spanish Society, 1400–1600 (Social History of Europe) (2002) Crisis and Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile (1994) The City and the Realm: Burgos and Castile 1080–1492 (1992) Medieval Spain, 711-1492 Medieval Europe: Crisis and Renewal. Course No. 863 The Teaching Company The Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition. Course No. 893 The Teaching Company, 2002Other 1492: Ferdinand, Isabella, and the Making of an Empire.
Course No. 899 The Teaching Company.
