Me

I'm a professor of medieval history, an Italian-American Catholic who grew up in the suburbs of Texas and only attended big state universities, but who currently teaches at a small liberal arts college founded by Norwegian Lutherans in the upper Midwest. Go figure.

I study medieval monks, who are much more interesting than you might imagine. In the past few years, I've branched out to write on non-medieval topics, like the history of Augsburg University for its 150th anniversary, coming soon. I'm also passionate about teaching. Check out this video where I talk about a crazy course I developed with some colleagues a few years back.

Memoir / Blog

Watching "Holocaust" in a small German village
6/24/2019

I lived in Kreuzberg, a poorer neighborhood of West Berlin that was a haven to artists. Kreuzberg was also full of Turkish Gastarbeiter, guest workers who had helped rebuild Germany after World War II but then “outstayed their welcome” by having children who became citizens under Germany’s birthright citizenship laws. This conflict was as old as the metics of ancient Athens and as fresh as the “dreamers” and DACA students of the 21st-century United States. Many more lessons on racism in those days, but I resisted it rather than passively letting it seep into my brain.

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