My research and teaching focus on the Ancient World and Late Antiquity, spanning a a geographic area from the Mediterranean to Central Asia.  My courses include an entry-level survey of the Ancient World, offered each autumn, which provides a broad introduction to the cultures of Paleolithic Europe, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome, and Early Christianity.  Other courses in my rotation examine the history of Ancient Iran, the Mongol Empire, and the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia).  I also teach a seminar on animal-human relations in world history ("the cow course").

My research focuses on the history of the Christian communities of the premodern Middle East. My first book, The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq (University of CA Press, 2006), sought to elucidate the Christian culture of the Sasanian Empire (224-642) and its dialogue with the social, political, and intellectual traditions of Iran, Syria, and the Greco-Roman world. Subsequent articles have examined Syriac Christan hagiography, book culture, shrine topography, and the general history of the Church of the East from its formation to the Mongol era.

My current research centers on a book project entitled: Witness to the Mongols: A Global History Source Book (under contract with the University of California Press), co-authored with the Middle Eastern historian Stefan Kamola.  I'm also writing about the history of pearls in the arts, imagination, and economy of the Ancient and Late Antique World. Several pieces from this second project are now in print or in press.  A third project, Bull of Heaven and Earth: A History of Cattle in the Ancient World, examines animal-human relations from Paleolithic Europe to the prohibition of animal sacrifice in the Later Roman Empire.

My graduate teaching has been eclectic, spanning the fields of Roman history, early Christianity, Late Antiquity, and Islamic studies. Former students include graduates of the Comparative Religion Program, the Department of Classics, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, the Jackson School’s Middle East Center, and the Graduate School’s Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Near and Middle Eastern Studies.