RESEARCH INTERESTS
Throughout my forty-three years of service at Rutgers my research and teaching revolved around a variety of themes in late Byzantine, Crusades, Balkan, and Early Ottoman history. I was (and still am) particularly interested in the reciprocal perceptions of religion (Christianity, Islam) among the populace of these regions. I retain a fascination for two political figures (the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, the sultan Bayezid I), and finally have the time to sort through dozens of papers and book ideas to see if I have anything worthwhile to contribute, at this stage.
One of the true joys of retirement is opening horizons to other interests and research projects. I have two that engage me now. I have always been intrigued by my "DNA" as a descendant of immigrants from Germany and Luxembourg, and I am lucky enough to have a dossier of thirty or so letters of a great-great-grandfather, somehow collected, documenting his life as a Homesteader in Kansas. I am struggling to decipher the German script (Kurrent) and translate coherently, though this ancestor was from the Emsland and spoke and wrote in Plattdeutsch, which feels a lot like Dutch. In the first letter, he complains how cold it was that winter of 1891 on the Kansas plains. I'm equally intrigued by the history of the house my spouse Joe and I own in southern Burgunndy, first attested in 1399, but with a raft of documents (most notarial) running almost to the present. Learning that handwriting, legal jargon, and sorting out details of petty seigneurs (fighting over land) is entertaining.
I have also become, as part of this all, fascinated by American History and in particular the development of the city where we live (Trenton), and its amazing fabric of ethnic diversity and enclaves. The architectural remnants of these sometimes remain, though crumbling or transformed into some other use, but I have never before understood so deeply that "diversity" is inscribed in the formation and evolution of the USA, from the beginning, and its history is just as fascinating as Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, and seigneurial France.
So I can't complain I'm bored and don't have much to do. Retirees all have medical complaints that a friend has described to me as "our endless organ recitals." I do try to keep up with my basic yoga exercises, though.
One of the true joys of retirement is opening horizons to other interests and research projects. I have two that engage me now. I have always been intrigued by my "DNA" as a descendant of immigrants from Germany and Luxembourg, and I am lucky enough to have a dossier of thirty or so letters of a great-great-grandfather, somehow collected, documenting his life as a Homesteader in Kansas. I am struggling to decipher the German script (Kurrent) and translate coherently, though this ancestor was from the Emsland and spoke and wrote in Plattdeutsch, which feels a lot like Dutch. In the first letter, he complains how cold it was that winter of 1891 on the Kansas plains. I'm equally intrigued by the history of the house my spouse Joe and I own in southern Burgunndy, first attested in 1399, but with a raft of documents (most notarial) running almost to the present. Learning that handwriting, legal jargon, and sorting out details of petty seigneurs (fighting over land) is entertaining.
I have also become, as part of this all, fascinated by American History and in particular the development of the city where we live (Trenton), and its amazing fabric of ethnic diversity and enclaves. The architectural remnants of these sometimes remain, though crumbling or transformed into some other use, but I have never before understood so deeply that "diversity" is inscribed in the formation and evolution of the USA, from the beginning, and its history is just as fascinating as Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, and seigneurial France.
So I can't complain I'm bored and don't have much to do. Retirees all have medical complaints that a friend has described to me as "our endless organ recitals." I do try to keep up with my basic yoga exercises, though.
PUBLICATIONS
Dracula
Brill, 2017
Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Studies
Routledge, 2014
My key articles on late Byzantine and early Ottoman history are published as Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Studies (Ashgate, 2014). I am also the principal editor of TO ELLENIKON: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr., vol. 1, Hellenic Antiquity and Byzantium, and vol. 2, Byzantinoslavica, Islamica, the Balkans and Modern Greece (Caratzas, 1993). I am the coordinating translator and editor of the English edition of Matei Cazacu’s Dracula (Brill, 2017).
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- Byzantine Studies Association of North America
- Turkish Studies Association
- Medieval Academy of America