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Late Antique, Early Medieval & Byzantine History

Faculty

 Mosaic of EmperorJustinian I
Mosaic of Emperor Justinian I, from the Basilica di San Vitale, Ravenna

We offer graduate seminars on late antique and early medieval topics, complemented by a range of other pre-modern history seminars and faculty.

Graduate students in late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine history often work with faculty in the departments of Classics, Religion, and Anthropology. Many students study Byzantine Greek with Kostas Kapparis and Medieval Latin with Robert Wagman or Victoria Pagán, and classics faculty often sit on our students’ dissertation committees. The History Department and the Department of Anthropology partner together to offer the country’s only certificate program in medieval archaeology, and late antique/early medieval historians with an interest in material culture are encouraged to take archaeology seminars and to include faculty from Anthropology on their dissertation committees. Students are also encouraged to explore the coursework and programming made possible through the interdisciplinary Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Egypt, 6th or 7th century: St. Menas designated by Christ as his trusted colleague and adviser
Egypt, 6th or 7th century: St. Menas designated by Christ as his trusted colleague and adviser

Faculty outside the History Department

Susan Gillespie (Archaeological theory)
Kostas Kapparis (Byzantine and Ancient Greek)
Victoria Pagán (Latin Historiography)
Robert Wagman (Medieval Latin)
Andrew Wolpert (Greek historiography)

Complete list of Anthropology faculty affiliated with the Certificate Program in Medieval Archaeology.

Complete list of faculty affiliated with the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Graduate Seminars

Sixth-century Merovingian fibula
Sixth-century Merovingian fibula

Faculty in the history department have recently taught the following graduate seminars on Late Antiquity & the Early Middle Ages:

Mission, Conversion, Christianization (c.100-c.800)
The Archaeology of the Middle Ages
Religion and Politics in Medieval Spain
Heresy in Premodern Europe
Economy and Society in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
The Empire and the Barbarians
Ethnicity in the Middle Ages
Village and Peasants in the Middle Ages

Current Students and Recent Graduates

In recent years our MA and 4/1 students working in this subfield have been accepted into leading PhD programs around the country including UC-Berkeley, Boston College, NYU, Ohio State, Princeton, UCLA, and UF. Other MA graduates have gone on to careers in publishing, teaching, law, and museum work.

Recent PhDs

Dissertation: “Marginal Money: Coins, Frontiers, and Barbarians in Early Byzantium, Sixth to Seventh Centuries”
Advisor: Florin Curta
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Alabama in Hunstville
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Dissertation: “Constructing a Christian Community: The Sermons of Chromatius of Aquileia, 388-407”
Advisor: Andrea Sterk
Position: Lecturer in the Ancient World, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
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Dissertation: Charlemagne : the making of an image, 1100-1300
Advisor: Florin Curta
Position: Assistant Professor of History, Marymount University

MA Student Matthew Delvaux ('13) sifts soil samples on a 2012 excavation of Viking Age Uppakra (Lund, Sweden), led by UF Prof. Florin Curta as part of UF's
MA Student Matthew Delvaux (’13) sifts soil samples at a 2012 excavation of Viking-Age Uppakra (Scania, Sweden), led by UF Prof. Florin Curta as part of UF’s Medieval Archaeology Field Practicum.