Self -Designed Courses
As an instructor of record at Binghamton University, Purchase College (SUNY), and Marist University, I have designed and taught several courses at the 200 and 300-level in each institution’s History and Medieval Studies departments.
Syllabi available upon request
Marist University, Department of History
Renaissance and Reformation Europe (HIST 296), On Campus, Fall 2026.
Described as a period of “rebirth” by historians since the Enlightenment, the Renaissance is a period that continues to be debated by modern historians. Through the study of primary and secondary sources, this course will problematize the concept of “the Renaissance” and how it frames the study of European history from c. 1350-1650. In conversation with the Protestant Reformation, the colonization of the Americas, and shifts in how Europeans understood race and race-making, this course will ask students to think critically about the Renaissance and its lasting impact on European history beyond 1650.
“Medieval Europe” (200-level survey) and “Early Modern Europe” (200-level survey) coming soon in Spring 2027.
Purchase College (SUNY), Department of History
Renaissance and Reformation Europe (HIST 220), On Campus, Fall 2026.
Described as a period of “rebirth” by historians since the Enlightenment, the Renaissance is a period that continues to be debated by modern historians. Through the study of primary and secondary sources, this course will problematize the concept of “the Renaissance” and how it frames the study of European history from c. 1350-1650. In conversation with the Protestant Reformation, the colonization of the Americas, and shifts in how Europeans understood race and race-making, this course will ask students to think critically about the Renaissance and its lasting impact on European history beyond 1650.
Binghamton University (SUNY), Department of History
Mediterranean Encounters (HIST 381K), Online Asynchronous, Summer 2022, 2023, and 2024
In the ancient and medieval periods, the Mediterranean served as the primary meeting place for the different cultures, ideas, religions, and commodities that shaped the histories of Eurasia and Africa from the height of the Roman Empire to the sixteenth century. Drawing upon readings of primary and secondary sources, this course will explore premodern Mediterranean cultural interactions and exchange through five interrelated themes: race and slavery, trade, science and medicine, crusading, and political expansion.
Premodern Italy, 500-1650 (HIST 381 A), Online Asynchronous, Winter 2025
The Italian Peninsula has long been viewed as a center point for cultural diversity, religious coexistence, and artistic flourishment in the history of the premodern Mediterranean. The polities that came to dominate Italian life – notably the Kingdom of Sicily, Republic of Venice, and Republic of Genoa – between 500 and 1650 offer a complex history filled with religious coexistence, trade, warfare, social change, and cultural development. Drawing upon readings of primary and secondary sources, this course aims to study premodern Italian history through themes of religious interaction (Christian, Islamic, and Jewish), conquest and political expansion, race and race making, and gender and sexuality. This course will ask students to think critically about the role of Italy in the Mediterranean world and its interactions with the peoples, polities, and cultures that occupied the same sea.
Modern World History (HIST 130 A), Online Asynchronous, Winter 2026 and Summer 2026
A thematic exploration of global history in the period 1500 to the present and the ways in which societies and peoples have confronted fundamental issues of the human condition. Examines developments in China, India, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Themes include the impact of the European conquest of the New World; industrial transformations; subjects and citizens; revolts and revolutions, nationalisms; wars and decolonization; globalization.
Binghamton University (SUNY), Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS)
Dungeons and Outlaws: The Prison in Medieval History (MDVL 381 Q), Online Asynchronous, Winter 2024.
In modern films, games, and television shows that depict the Middle Ages, the dungeon sits at the heart of the “darkness” of medieval life. For prisoners inside dungeons, castles, monasteries, and towers, the experience of imprisonment differed based on one’s status, social class, and gender. Drawing upon readings of primary and secondary sources by prisoners and their jailers, this course will explore prisons in the cultural, social, religious, and political fabric of the medieval world in three interrelated themes: gender and sexuality, religion and inquisition, and crime and punishment. To look beyond the ways that modern culture views medieval dungeons and prisons, this course will explore how medieval people used, viewed, and experienced imprisonment between the Carolingian period and the Protestant Reformation.
Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (MDVL 380 G), Online Asynchronous, Summer 2025
Popular films, books, and culture present the Spanish and Portuguese Middle Ages as a period dominated by religious warfare (Reconquest/Reconquista), social violence, and changing borders. The kingdoms that came to dominate Iberian life – Castile-Leon, the Crown of Aragon, Navarre, and Nasrid Granada – between 711 and 1492 offer a complex history filled with religious coexistence, political expansion and contraction, and social change. Drawing upon readings of primary and secondary sources, this course aims to study the Spanish and Portuguese Middle Ages through themes of crusading, religious interaction (Islamic, Christian, and Jewish), colonization, and conflict between the Umayyad expansion into Iberia in 711 to the expulsion of Iberian Jews and Muslims after 1492. This course will ask students to think critically about the broader role of Iberia in European, North African, and Near Eastern history between medieval and early modern worlds that looks beyond notions of reconquest and convivencia.
