Michael Kulikowski, Professor of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies; Head, Department of History and Program in Religious Studies
108E Weaver
814-865-1367
mek31@psu.edu
"I am a late Roman historian and work on the political and institutional history of the empire between the second and fifth centuries, with a special interest in how one can read historical sources against the background of other evidence. My first book was a study of Roman and post-Roman Spain that tried to set the small body of written texts against the background of material culture; my second looked at the impact of Roman imperialism on neighboring territories and argued that the history of the barbarians, specifically the Goths, can be understood entirely as a response to roman imperialism. I am presently at work on two projects: a large history of the Roman empire from Hadrian to the fall of the western empire for the Profile History of the Ancient World, and a study of late imperial political culture and the gap between political rhetoric and political practice provisionally entitled The Rhetoric of Being Roman.
As the North American co-director of the International Network for the Study of Late Antiquity, I'm pleased to announce that Penn State will be hosting the third annual meeting in conjunction with the ninth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Meeting (23-26 June 2011).
Before coming to Penn State in 2009, I taught for eight years at the University of Tennessee"
Courses
As Department Head, I offer only one course each year, but will participate in the department's Western Civilization offerings and a graduate seminar on Ammianus Marcellinus and the fourth century.
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