Education
- Postdoctoral Lectureship, Introduction the Humanities and Classics, Stanford University
- Ph.D., Michigan State University
- M.A., University of South Carolina
Affiliations
- Centro di Conservazionie Archeologica (Belmonte and Sardinia)
- Bir Ftouha Excavations (Carthage, Tunisia)
- Yanbian University of Science and Technology
Areas of Expertise
- Ancient History
- Early Medieval History
- Late Antiquity
- Early Byzantine History
- Early Islamic History
- Hellenistic History
Courses Taught
- Ancient Empires
- Ancient World
- Ancient Historiography
- Rise of Christianity
- Medieval Europe
- Medieval Intellectual History
- Byzantium and Islam
- Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World
- World History I
- Historiography
- Western Civilization
- Reading Latin
- Readings in Attic Greek (Aristophanes’ Frogs)
- Film and History: Decadent Rome and the Wild West
- The History and Archaeology of the Roman Empire
- The History and Archaeology of Carthage
- Salonica and Istanbul: Among Christians, Muslims, and Jews
- Christianity and the Fall of the Roman Empire
- Early Medieval Europe
Selected Research
- Ancient Empires
- Mediterranean Antiquity in America
- Settler Colonialism in Antiquity
- Ancient and Medieval Education
- Ancient Marble
- Phrygian Empire
Selected Publications
- 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity: Inspiring True Stories from the Early Church Around the World (Baker Books, in press).
- “News and Networks: The Later Roman Empire,” in Sian Lewis and Dalida Agri, eds., Cultural History of the Media: Antiquity (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
- “Charles Rollin’s Ancient History” in What the Presidents Read: Childhood Favorites and Family Stories, Marilynn Olson and Elizabeth Goodenough, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, January 2025).
- “Between the Ancients and the Moderns: Charles Rollin, Popular Historian and Pedagogue of Virtue,” in Brett A. Geier, ed., Palgrave Handbook of Educational Thinkers (London: Palgrave MacMillan, Feb. 2024), 6,000 word original essay.
- “Charles Rollin and Universal History in America,” Modern Intellectual History 17:2 (print 2020): 325-355 (online 15 Nov. 2018).
- “Settler Colonialism from the Neo-Assyrians to the Romans,” in Edward Cavanaugh and Lorenzo Veracini, eds., Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Settler Colonialism (London: Routledge, 2017).
- Antikçağ İmparatorlukları: Mezopotamya’dan İslamiyet’in Doğuşuna (Istanbul: Say Yayınları, 2017). Turkish translation of Ancient Empires: From Mesopotamia to the Rise of Islam.
- Ancient Empires: From Mesopotamia to the Rise of Islam, with Eric H. Cline (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
- Impérios Antigos: Da Mesopotâmia à Origem do Islã, trans. Gertulio Schanoski Jr. (São Paulo: Madras, 2013).
- News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).
- “The Opening of the Western Mind: The Emergence of Higher Education in the ‘Dark Ages’” in P.C. Kemeny, ed. Faith, Freedom, and Higher Education (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2013), 14-34.
- “’The Enchanter’s Wand’: Charles Darwin, The Beagle Voyage, and Foreign Missions,” Journal of Religious History 31.2 (2007): 131-150.
- “Wall Decoration: Worked Stone,” in Bir Ftouha: A Pilgrimage Church Complex at Carthage. Susan Stevens et al. eds. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 59 (2005), 379-397.
Professional Experience
- Multiple summers of Archaeology and Archaeological Conservation work in Carthage, Tunisia, Rome and Sardinia, Italy, and Ancient Corinth, Greece
- Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute
- Taught Humanities and Classics at Stanford University
Hobbies/Interests
- Coin Collecting
- Travel
- Antiques
You might be surprised to know
I was the first member of my extended family to graduate from college.