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.

Teaching & Supervision 

Lecturer, The University of British Columbia, Department of History

Europe in the Later 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

Lecturer, 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

Crispin Wellburn, [TBD], History Honours thesis, 2024.

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

Other Appointments 

Research Assistant

Research Assistant to Prof. Paul Edward Dutton (Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University, Department of Humanities), 2022/23. Research for the monograph Micro Middle Ages.

Research Assistant, Simon Fraser University, Department of History

Research Assistant to Prof. Roxanne Panchasi, 2022. Research for digital humanities project concerning France’s nuclear program and its impact in Algeria.

Research Assistant, The University of British Columbia, Department of History

Research Assistant to Prof. Sebastian Prange, 2020. Research for the medieval section of an upcoming monograph on “Outlaw Economics.”

Research Assistant to Prof. Courtney Booker, Department of History, 2019. Assistance with collating a medieval manuscript.

Research Assistant to Prof. Courtney Booker, Department of History, 2017–18. Project collaborator on the creation of an electronic database of early modern (ca. 1500–1800) authors’ copies (Handexemplars).

Research Assistant to Prof. Courtney Booker, Department of History, 2016–17. Assistance with English translation of Henri-Xavier Arquillière’s L’augustinisme politique. Essai sur la formation des théories politiques du Moyen Âge.

Research Assistant to Prof. Richard Matthew Pollard, Department of History, 2013–14. “The Latin Josephus Project”: https://sites.google.com/site/latinjosephus/.

Research Assistant to Prof. Leslie Paris, Department of History, 2012–13. Assistance with historical project on the cloth-diapering subculture in contemporary North America.

Other Contributions 

Coordinator & Research Assistant to 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 of the 45th annual UBC Medieval Workshop: “Theologies of the Political: From Augustine to Agamben, and Beyond,” Vancouver, BC, 29–30 March, 2019.

“Temporality, Authority, and ‘Ancient Christianity’ in the Carolingian Era” (Ph.D. diss., 2021)

“Beati patres: Uses of Augustine and Gregory the Great at Carolingian Church Councils, 816–836″ (M.A. thesis, The University of British Columbia, 2015).

The Latin Josephus Project (with Prof. Richard Matthew Pollard).

“Sharers in the Contemplative Virtue: Julianus Pomerius’s Carolingian Audience” (honors thesis, The University of British Columbia, 2013).

Research Interests

• Early medieval Europe
• Carolingian political and ecclesiastical culture
• Church history
• Textual reception
• Historical Theology
• Patristics and Late Antiquity
• Augustine of Hippo
• Gregory the Great
• Authorship and authority
• Canon law and the construction of Christian orthodoxy
• Conceptions of time, history, and memory
• Uses of the past
• Political Theology
• Scriptural Exegesis
• Hermeneutics

Book

In the Footsteps of the Ancient Fathers: The Construction and Use of Patristic Authority in the Carolingian Era. Receptio Patristica. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

Articles/Book Chapters

“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 and Noah Blan. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

“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.

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

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

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

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)

“Review of K. Patrick Fazioli, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination,” Francia-Recensio, no. 1., 2018.

“Review of Nancy Mandeville Caciola, Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages,” Comitatus, vol. 48. pp. 196-199, 2017.

“Review of Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity, ed. Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo,” Comitatus, vol. 46. pp. 231-233, 2015.

“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, vol. 46. pp. 258-260, 2015.

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

Conference Presentations

“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 45th 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 panel “Living in the Carolingian World,” at the 53rd 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