Dr. Teresa Shawcross

Biography

Teresa Shawcross is a historian specializing in the medieval Mediterranean world. Her research situates in the interstices of Byzantium, Islam, and the Latin West, focusing especially on the contacts, conflicts, and exchanges between ethno-religious social groups amid large-scale migrations of migrants, colonizers, enslaved persons, and refugees. She examines the theories and practices of empire in Western Eurasia, particularly how the memory of Rome has retained an enduring influence. In recent years, she has developed lines of inquiry concerned with illuminating pre-modern interactions among the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. Shawcross has investigated modes of belonging and identity, the roles of language, multilingualism, translation, and code-switching, along with the interplay of written, visual, and aural media. Her significant contributions to the field include a book on the historiography of the Crusader States and a research monograph funded by the New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation. As an engaged scholar, she directs the Medieval Black Sea Project and writes extensively in the domains of reception studies, medieval forms of antiquarianism, and the dynamics of power and identity in the late Byzantine world.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards