Dr. Teresa Shawcross

Biography

Teresa Shawcross is a historian specializing in the Byzantine Empire, the Mediterranean World, and the Middle Ages. Her book, 'Chronicle of Morea: Historiography of Crusader Greece,' investigates the evolution of identity representation within medieval historical narratives, particularly in regions marked by ethnic diversity and political interests. Shawcross's current research expands into medieval theories and practices of empire, as she completes her forthcoming book, 'Nightmares of Empire: Memory, Legitimation, and Power in the Eastern Mediterranean, 13th-15th Centuries.' She is also preparing an edition and translation of the writings of the Italo-Byzantine political theorist and statesman Theodore Palaeologus. Additionally, she is conducting preliminary research for a monograph tentatively titled 'Cosmopolitan Networks in the Age of Revolutions: Ruling the Mediterranean World at the End of Empire,' which aims to compare the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires, analyzing the collapse of imperial authority and the transformation of transregional power networks. Shawcross has received the New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, which supports her exploration of the interactions between Mediterranean and Central Asiatic history. She holds a B.A., M.Phil., and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford and a Maîtrise from Université de Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle. Before joining the faculty at Princeton University in 2012, she held the Hannah Seeger Davis Post-Doctoral Fellowship and was an Assistant Professor of Medieval European and Mediterranean History at Amherst College. Currently, she is on sabbatical as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University.

Research Interests

Experience