Degrees

Ph.D., Princeton University
B.A., University of California, Berkeley

Arabic study at the Institut Français d'Etudes Arabes à Damas (Damascus, Syria)

Main Interests

My research and teaching seek to break down conventional boundaries that separate regions of the Mediterranean world in the premodern era.  My first book, Family and Empire, studies family networks to tell the "connected history" of five territories of the Spanish Empire in Iberia and North Africa, and analyzes how families rooted for generations in local communities became international, itinerant imperial officers.  My next project goes back to late antiquity in both Europe and the Middle East to study the similar origins and parallel developments of the West and Islam.

I am co-founder and co-director of the Wheaton Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities (WIIH).  The WIIH brings scholars and their work to campus and infuses them directly into coursework.  Students engage with the visitors and their scholarship, and through the process of presenting their knowledge to expert practitioners, they gain valuable professional skills.  The 2012-2013 inaugural theme of the WIIH is "The Humanities Give Back: The Role of the Humanities in Professional Fields."  Three events in Spring 2013 will bring practitioners of business, engineering, law, medicine, and sciences-technology to Wheaton to explore how these professionals structure humanistic knowledge and skills into their work.

I am founder and executive director of the Spain-North Africa Project (SNAP), a new academic organization that brings together scholars and scholarship that consider the two areas as one interconnected region.  Established in July 2010, SNAP has grown from 11 founders to 125+ members from a variety of academic and professional institutions on four continents.  A one-of-a-kind organization that deliberately bridges divides between researchers focused on Christian, Islamic, and Jewish communities and working in Latin, Romance, Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages, we engage in collaborative publications, organize conferences, and present at professional meetings including the AHA, MESA, and ASPHS.

Research and learning within the context of intellectual communities are integral to my work in the field as well as the classroom.  Sharing questions about the past and testing out hypotheses together make scholarship and teaching particularly meaningful and rewarding.  I bring my scholarly pursuits, interests, and questions into the classroom so that my students can also participate in the intellectual discourse of the larger academic community.

Research Interests

(New Research)
Germanic and Arab invasions
Fall of the Roman West and East
Emergence of Germanic kingdoms and the Arab empire
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish interaction in the Mediterranean World
Foundation and reproduction of societies

(Continuing Research)
Medieval and early modern Spain/Spanish Empire
Premodern empires
Family history

Teaching Interests

I teach an equal number of courses on European and Islamic histories.  My European courses focus on the premodern era, especially late medieval and early modern Europe.  My Islamic courses range from the late antique to the modern period, and focus primarily on the core Middle East.

Courses in European History:
HIST 101 The Development of Modern Europe from the Medieval Era to 1789
HIST 275 Old Regime and Revolutionary France
HIST 298 Renaissance and Reformation
HIST 351 War and Peace in the Mediterranean World 1400-1700
HIST 398 Great Stories in Early Modern Europe
HIST 401 Senior Seminar (European/Asian concentrations)

Courses taught in Middle Eastern/Islamic History:
FYS Political Islam in Historical Perspective
HIST 251 Early Islamic Societies
HIST 252 The Modern Middle East 1800-1992
HIST 351 War and Peace in the Mediterranean World 1400-1700
HIST 352 Social Movements in Modern Islam
HIST 401 Senior Seminar (European/Asian concentrations)

Publications

Family and Empire: The Fernández de Córdoba and the Spanish Realm (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

Co-author with Barbara Fuchs, “Introduction: A Forgotten Empire: The Early Modern Spanish-North African Borderlands,” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12:3 (September 2011), p. 261-271.Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

Co-editor, A Forgotten Empire: The Early Modern Spanish-North African Borderlands, a special issue of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12:3 (September, 2011).

First author, with the Executive Board of the Spain-North Africa Project, "The Spain-North Africa Project and the Study of the Western Mediterranean," Medieval Encounters 19, no. 1 (2013) (forthcoming).

Invited co-editor with the Executive Board of the Spain-North Africa Project, Spain-North Africa: Unity and Disunity in the Western Mediterranean, a special issue of Medieval Encounters 19, no. 1 (2013) (forthcoming).

First author, with Touba Ghadessi, "The Interdisciplinary Humanities: A Platform for Professionalization and Experiential Learning," Perspectives on History 51, no. 4 (April 2013).

Other Activities

Conferences, Panels, and Papers

I regularly present my research at annual meetings of the American Historical Association, Renaissance Society of America, and the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. In recent years, I have co-organized the 2011 New England Renaissance Conference at Wheaton College and the 2011 Spain-North Africa Project Symposium at Catholic University of America. I have also organized panels and series of panels at the annual meetings of the AHA (2013, 2012, 2011), Social Science History Association (2011), ASPHS (2011), and RSA (2010).

Awards

Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowship (2013), National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Development Fellowship (2012), Spanish Ministry of Culture (2011), National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute: Cultural Hybridities in the Medieval Mediterranean (2010), Social Science Research Council-International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2000), Spanish Ministry of Education (2000), IIE-Fulbright Grant to Syria (1996).