It seems to me that I became a medievalist because of the great gothic cathedrals of the thirteenth century that I visited in France in my childhood.  I remain in awe of their sublime beauty. My primary interests lie in how religious ideas and practices underwrote and reinforced institutions and ideologies of power. I come to these interests from a secular perspective, but with enormous respect for the complex set of ideas — both beautiful and horrifying, both sublime and violent — that shaped the medieval world, and has bequeathed a profound legacy on our own.

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I have taught medieval history at Dartmouth college since 2000.  I teach, in addition to general surveys that run from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period, courses on the Crusades, on Saints and Relics, and on Art and Ideology, along with different specialized seminars.  I also spent fifteen years as the Assistant Dean of Faculty for Pre-Major Advising, a role which honed my appreciation of the value and importance of the classic liberal arts education.  I have been incredibly fortunate to spend my career at an institution which values rigorous undergraduate teaching and also the humanities.