Faculty / Resources / Students and Alumni
UF has a large and dynamic program in medieval and early modern history. We offer a range of seminars, undergraduate courses, public lectures, graduate student reading groups, and symposia. Former Masters students (many who received undergraduate degrees in premodern history at UF) have since moved on to PhD programs–at UC Berkeley, Boston College, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, and Princeton. Recent graduates of the PhD program in medieval and early modern European history now hold tenure-track or permanent positions in medieval history.
Faculty
The Department of History at UF has six faculty members who focus on medieval and early modern Europe. Their specialties range from archaeology of the Early Middle Ages to early modern intellectual history, from the Spanish Empire to Kievan Rus. Each of them regularly advises graduate students and teaches graduate seminars in medieval or early modern European history.
Nina Caputo (medieval Jewish history, medieval Spain)
Florin Curta (Carolingian Europe, medieval Eastern Europe, Byzantium, archaeology, medievalism)
Max Deardorff (Colonial Latin America and Early Modern Spain)
Anton Matytsin (Early modern Europe)
Early modern Europeanists often work with colonial Americanists in the department who have transatlantic interests, like Jon Sensbach.
Resources
UF hosts the interdisciplinary Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS). Faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduates from different departments participate in this forum to study the influences of medieval and early modern culture on the modern world. MEMS regularly organizes presentations and panels by outside speakers and both faculty and graduate students from UF.
The Center for Jewish Studies at UF frequently works with the Department of History to bring outside presenters to campus, contribute to colloquia and conferences organized by graduate students, and host broader cultural events in the city of Gainesville.
UF offers the only graduate Certificate Program in Medieval Archaeology in North America. With the help of contributing faculty members from History and Anthropology, this program provides a variety of opportunities in both departments for coursework and fieldwork.
Several medieval and early modern faculty members in other departments work with History Department faculty and graduate students to teach seminars and language courses, organize conferences and presentations, and help graduate students fulfill requirements for qualifying exams and dissertation committees:
Shifra Armon (Spanish) early modern Spanish literature and culture
Susan Gillespie (Anthropology) archaeology, ethnohistory, archaeological theory
Will Hasty (Languages, Literatures and Cultures) German literary and cultural history from the High Middle Ages, medieval and modern Arthurian Studies, cross-cultural studies
Rebecca Jefferson (Smathers Library, Judaica Bibliographer) medieval Hebrew, Genizah specialist)
Robert Kawashima (Religion) Hebrew Bible, exegesis, ancient religion and literature
Victoria Pagan (Classics): Roman historiography, post-Augustan prose
Elizabeth Ross (Art History) visual culture of the late medieval and early modern world
Robert Wagman (Classics), medieval Latin, ancient Greek, ancient religion
Mary Watt (Languages, Literatures and Cultures) Italian literature, Dante
Graduate Seminars Offered
Archaeology of the Middle Ages
Atlantic Religion
Colonial Spanish America
Early Modern Spain
East Central Europe in the Middle Ages
Economy and Society in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
The Empire and the Barbarians
Ethnicity in the Middle Ages
Europe and the World, 1350-1750
The Gendered Body in Christianity, 200-800
Habsburg Monarchy
Heresy in Premodern Europe
Holy War
Jewish-Christian Controversy in the Middle Ages
Late Antiquity: From Pagan Rome to Christian Europe
Medievalisms
Mission, Conversion, and Christianization (c.200-c.1000)
Readings in Early Modern Europe
Reformation Europe
Religion and Reform, 1400-1750
Religion and Politics in Medieval Spain
Religion in Late Medieval and Eraly Modern Europe
Village and Peasant in the Middle Ages
Current Graduate Students
Daniel Conigliaro
Rebecca Devlin
Cacey Farnsworth
Brian Hamm
Sarah Harms
Bryan Kozik
Matthew Koval
Anna Lankina
Alana Lord
Austin McCray
Ralph Patrello
Danielle Reid
Jan Volek
Reid Weber
PhDs in Medieval and Early Modern History
Andrei Gandila (’13)
Assistant Professor of History, The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Andrew Holt (’13)
Associate Professor of History, Florida State College at Jacksonville
Robert McEachnie (’13)
Lecturer in the Ancient World, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Michael Morse (‘09)
Chair, Humanities, Foreign Languages, and Behavioral Sciences, Lake Sumter State College
Daniel Julich (‘08)
Assistant Professor of History, Sterling College
Pavel Murzdhev (’08)
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities, Santa Fe College
Jace A. Stuckey (’06)
Assistant Professor of History, Marymount University
Steven Matthews (‘04)
Associate Professor and Department Head, University of Minnesota Duluth