I am an historian of Late Antiquity and early medieval Europe, in particular the Carolingian era (ca. 751–888 C.E.) and with emphases on intellectual, cultural, and reception history. My forthcoming book is concerned with perceptions and applications of the texts, ideas, and famous writers of the Christian past – especially the “Church Fathers” of the fourth through sixth centuries – across the period of social, legal, and ecclesiastical reforms spearheaded by Charlemagne and his heirs in the ninth century. My publications include studies of Augustine of Hippo’s multifaceted influence in the Carolingian world and the ninth-century reception of the De vita contemplativa of Julianus Pomerius (d. ca. 500 C.E.). I have taught on subjects close to this area of research, but also more broadly on the history of Europe, on uses of the past and the construction of “golden ages” from antiquity to modern times, and on many other topics.

Instructor, The University of British Columbia, Department of History

World History from 1500 to the Twentieth Century (HIST 102) – Terms 1–2, Fall 2024/Spring 2025

History of Europe (HIST 220A) – Term 2, Summer 2024

Europe in the Late Middle Ages (HIST 364), Term 2, Spring 2024

What Is History? (HIST 100), Term 1, Fall 2023

World History from 1500 to the Twentieth Century (HIST 102) – Terms 1–2, Fall 2023/Spring 2024

History of Europe (HIST 220A) – Term 1, Summer 2023

Medieval Portraits and Personalities (HIST 478) – Term 2, Spring 2023

Europe in the Early Middle Ages (HIST 363) – Term 1, Fall 2022

World History from 1500 to the Twentieth Century (HIST 102) – Terms 1–2, Fall 2022/Spring 2023

Europe in the Early Middle Ages (HIST 363) – Term 1, Fall 2021

Uses of the Past and the Perception of Golden Ages (HIST 490) – Term 1, Fall 2020

Instructor, The University of British Columbia, Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies

The Viking World (NORD 338), Term 2, Spring 2024

Instructor, University of Victoria, Department of History

Laws and Notions of Law in Premodern Cultures (HSTR 371) – Spring 2023

Ten Days That Shook the World (HSTR 101A) – Fall 2022

Epidemics from the Black Death to AIDS (HSTR 101C) – Fall 2022

Thesis Supervisor, The University of British Columbia

Crispin Wellburn, “The Hun and the Holy Man: The Reception and Transformation of Leo the Great’s Meeting with Attila the Hun,” History Honours thesis (in progress).

Joseph Del Bigio, “Tracking the Relationship Between Intention and Outcome at Valleyview Hospital,” History Honours thesis, 2023.

Other Contributions

Organizer of the 46^th UBC Medieval Workshop: “The Writing of Ancient Christianity in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” Vancouver, BC, 16–18 October 2024.

Coordinator (with Prof. Tara Mayer), assistance in planning and organizing the international research roundtable “Visual Literacy: Seeing, Making, and Reading Images Across the Disciplines,” held at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study, Vancouver, BC, 23–25 October 2019.

Co-organizer (with Prof. Courtney Booker) of the 45^th UBC Medieval Workshop: “Theologies of the Political: From Augustine to Agamben, and Beyond,” Vancouver, BC, 29–30 March 2019.

Research Interests

intellectual history; cultural history; uses of the past; political theology; religious studies; Church history; textual reception; Early medieval Europe; Carolingian political and ecclesiastical culture; Augustine of Hippo; Patristics and Late Antiquity; Early Christianity; Pauline Studies; the ‘Synoptic Problem’; time and temporality; authorship and authority; premodern historiography; reform; tradition; canon law and the construction of orthodoxy

Books

[forthcoming] In the Footsteps of the Ancient Fathers: The Construction and Use of Patristic Authority in the Carolingian Era. Receptio Patristica. Leiden: Brill.

[forthcoming] as Editor, with Sean Hannan and Andrew Cain, The Writing of Ancient Christianity: Essays in Honour of Mark Vessey. Turnhout: Brepols.

Articles

[forthcoming] “In veterum vestigia patrum: Following (and Fashioning) ‘The Fathers’ in the Carolingian World.” Studia Patristica (2026).

“Pomerius, Julianus.” In Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. Edited by David G. Hunter, Paul J.J. van Geest, and Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte. Leiden, 2021.

 “An Authority among Authorities: Knowledge and Use of Augustine in the Wider Carolingian World.” Early Medieval Europe 28.4 (2020), pp. 532–559. (Q1 journal)

“Sharers in the Contemplative Virtue: Julianus Pomerius’s Carolingian Audience.” Comitatus 45 (2014), pp. 1–44.

Book Chapters

[forthcoming] “On the Margins of the City of God: Reading and Using Augustine’s De civitate Dei (as historia) in the Carolingian World.” In Living in a Carolingian World. Edited by Valerie Garver, Carine van Rhijn, and Noah Blan. Leiden: Brill.

[forthcoming] “Augustine as Guarantor of ‘Patristic’ Status in the Early Middle Ages: The Nachleben of Tyconius, (Donatist) Father of the (Catholic) Church.” In Augustine and the Making of Christian Practice. Edited by Matthieu Pignot. Turnhout: Brepols, 2024.

Book Reviews

Review of Graeme Ward, History, Scripture, and Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Frechulf of Lisieux, Early Medieval Europe 30.4 (2022).

Review of Martin Goodman, Josephus’s The Jewish War: A Biography, H-War (2021).

Review of Rutger Kramer, Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Ideals and Expectations during the Reign of Louis the Pious (813–828), Early Medieval Europe 29.1 (2021), pp. 116–119.

Review of K. Patrick Fazioli, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination, Francia-Recensio 2018/1.

Review of Nancy Mandeville Caciola, Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages, Comitatus 48 (2017), pp. 196–1999.

Review of Law, Rulership, and Rhetoric: Selected Essays of Robert L. Benson, ed. Loren J. Weber, in collaboration with Giles Constable and Richard H. Rouse, Comitatus 46 (2015), pp. 258-260.

Review of Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity, eds. Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo, Comitatus 46 (2015), pp. 231-233.

Review of George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity, Comitatus 45 (2014), pp. 233-236.

Conference Presentations

[forthcoming] “Quasi periculose scripsissem: The dangers of Scripture and the necessity of a Patristic Canon in the Carolingian World,” to be delivered at “Challenging Knowledge in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, March 2025 (postponed from October 2023).

“In veterum vestigia patrum: Following (and Fashioning) ‘The Fathers’ in the Carolingian World,” delivered as part of the workshop “The Marriage of Patristics and Reception Studies: Challenges and Prospects” at the International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford, UK, 6 August 2024.

“The ‘Patristic’ Past and the Presence of the Fathers in Works by Paschasius Radbertus,” delivered as part of the session “Carolingian Receptions of Augustine’s Texts and Ideas,” at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, 4 July 2023.

“Constructing ‘Christian Literature’: Texts De viris illustribus from Jerome and Gennadius of Marseille to Alcuin of York and Notker Balbulus,” delivered as part of the session “Perceptions of Authorship in the Middle Ages,” at the 58^th annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Mich., 13 May 2023.

“Augustine as Guarantor of ‘Patristic’ Status in the Early Middle Ages: The Nachleben of Tyconius,” delivered at “Augustine and the Making of Christian Practice (400–1000),” Durham, UK, 24 March 2023.

“Varieties of ‘Patristic Authority’ at Carolingian Church Councils,” delivered as part of the session “Patristic Authority in the Early Middle Ages” at the International Medieval   Congress, Leeds, UK, 5 July 2022.

“Tempora periculosa, dies mali: Tyconius, Augustine, and Their Carolingian Readers’ Responses to Pauline Eschatology,” delivered at the 45^th annual UBC Medieval Workshop: “Theologies of the Political: From Augustine to Agamben, and Beyond,” Vancouver, BC, 29 March 2019.

“How ‘Augustinian’ Was the ‘Carolingian World’?”, delivered as part of the session “Living in the Carolingian World,” at the 53^rd annual International Congress on Medieval Studies,  Kalamazoo, Mich., 10 May 2018.

• Association Internationale d’Études Patristiques/International Association of Patristic Studies, Conference Scholarship Award, 2023
• Wallace Johnson Program for First Book Authors (law and legal culture of the early Middle Ages) Fellowship, 2022
• David W. Strangway Fellowship, 2019
• UBC History Department Teaching Assistant Award, 2019
• Conway Summer Travel Scholarship in German History, 2019
• Department of History (UBC) Summer Research and Writing Fellowship, 2019
• UBC Graduate Student Research Award, 2019
• Josephine T. Berthier Fellowship, 2018
• David W. Strangway Fellowship, 2018
• Department of History (UBC), M.A. Thesis Prize, for best thesis in cohort, 2015
• SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, 2013
• J.H. Stewart Reid Medal and Prize in Honors History, for best thesis in cohort, 2013
• Fritz Lehmann Memorial Prize in History, 2012