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Bonnie Effros - Department of History

Bonnie Effros

she/her
Department Head, Professor
Office Hours
during term: Wednesdays 10-12, and by appointment (please arrange via email).
Regional Research Area
Education

PhD History, UCLA 1994
MA History, UCLA 1990
BA History, Brandeis University 1987


About

Bonnie Effros has been Professor and Head of the History Department at UBC since January 2022. Prior to this, she was Professor of European History and the Chaddock Chair in Economic and Social History at the University of Liverpool (2017-2021). Her research and teaching address a number of chronological and thematic fields, including the history of archaeology, antiquarianism, and collecting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; late antique and early medieval history and archaeology; and gender history and archaeology. The main geographic focus of her research is nineteenth- and twentieth-century France and its colonial possessions. However, her teaching addresses topics related to northwestern Europe and the lands surrounding the Mediterranean basin in both the early Middle Ages and the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Before Liverpool, Prof. Effros taught at the University of Florida, where she served as the inaugural Robert and Margaret Rothman Chair and Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and had an appointment as a professor of history (2009-2017). This position followed on her post as an associate professor and professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University (SUNY) (2001-2009), where she served as departmental chair from 2004 to 2006. At Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, she was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies (1996-2001). From 1994 to 1995, she held an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

Prof. Effros is the series editor of the Brill Series on the Early Middle Ages, a continuation of the Transformation of the Roman World series published by E.J. Brill in the Netherlands (2004-present) and she is a book review editor (2021-present) and member of the editorial board of Studies in Late Antiquity published by University of California Press (2016-present). From 2023-2026, she is serving as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America (her first term was in 2011-2014, and she then served as a member of the Executive Committee from 2013-2014). For several years, Prof. Effros served as a sponsored lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America.


Teaching


Research

Provincial and National Archaeology in France and Britain

For the last two decades, Prof. Effros has examined early developments in nineteenth-century antiquarianism and archaeology, beginning with growing interest in France in the early medieval past which was sparked by the discovery of long-forgotten cemeteries during the course of the industrial revolution. Finds of graves of “Germanic warriors” pushed the French to reconsider their national origins, which could no longer be linked exclusively to the ancient Gauls. This project also allowed her to examine the impact of the formation of the discipline of archaeology on the collection and interpretation of material artifacts, and their manner in which they were traded, collected, displayed, and interpreted in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Prof. Effros’ current monograph project investigates the career of Père Camille de la Croix (d.1911), a Jesuit archaeologist of Belgian nationality who was active in Poitiers (and the Vienne more generally) in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. She is particularly interested in his excavations at the Hypogée des Dunes and the baptistère Saint-Jean in Poitiers, and their contribution to a contested discourse on France’s early Christian past that was deeply entwined with ultramontane controversies of the period. This book project addresses the divisiveness of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the impact of the First Vatican Council and the rise of antisemitism on the publications of clerical scholars. It puts medieval archaeological and hagiographical research conducted in southwestern France in its historical context and demonstrates how Christian archaeology helped promote problematic claims for the conversion of France to Christianity in the first century. Related to this project, supported by a SSHRC Insight Development grant (2023-2025), she is working on several articles on the exportation of catacomb martyrs from Rome to France and North Africa in the nineteenth century.

Since 2020, Prof. Effros has also conducted research on the fascinating career and collections of the Liverpool silversmith and jeweller, Joseph Mayer (d. 1886), whose purchases included the eighteenth-century collection of Rev. Faussett of Anglo-Saxon-period antiquities from Kent. As one of the co-founders of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Mayer made foundational contributions to cultural and intellectual life in the city of Liverpool. His donation of his very important and varied collections (including everything from Egyptian antiquities to Wedgwood pottery) to the Corporation of Liverpool in 1867 made the city’s museum one of the richest collections in nineteenth-century Britain. Today his former holdings are part of the permanent collections of Liverpool’s World Museum, the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum of Liverpool.

French Colonial Archaeology in Algeria and Tunisia

In 2018, Prof. Effros published a monograph on French colonial archaeology in North Africa. It examines how in the course of the French invasion and subsequent “pacification” of the region that became Algeria, the armée d’Afrique confiscated homes, land, and mosques from the indigenous population and massacred tribes that resisted French domination. Along with the normalization of violence against civilian inhabitants, classical monuments fared badly, being reused as fortifications or destroyed as materiel for building French barracks, roads, and hospitals. This project studies the contributions of nineteenth-century military officers, who, raised on classical accounts of warfare and often trained as cartographers, developed interest in the Roman remains they encountered throughout Algeria. Linking archaeological studies of the Roman past to French narratives of the Algerian occupation, the project examines how Roman archaeology helped foster a new identity for military and civilian settlers and critiques the close entanglement of classical studies with politics in colonial and metropolitan France. Closely related to this project is a volume of sixteen essays by international experts on imperial and colonial archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth century that she co-edited with art historian, Prof. Guolong Lai (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018).

Prof. Effros continues to work on North Africa, now focusing on Christian archaeology in Tunisia from the 1840s. For the period from the 1870s onward, she has used the rich archives of the Société des missionnaires d’Afrique (Rome) to understand better the excavations of Alfred-Louis Delattre (d. 1932) who excavated Christian and Punic remains in Carthage for nearly fifty years.

Early Medieval Burial and Feasting Rituals; Early Medieval Gender and Christian Spirituality

Prof. Effros’ early medieval research focused on the interpretation of burial ritual in communities in Merovingian Gaul. Her first two books examined written and archaeological evidence related to the treatment and burial of the dead in post-Roman Gaul. Due to her interest in material remains, particularly important because of the scarcity of documents attesting to early medieval ritual practices, she dedicated her third monograph to examining early medieval feasting and fasting rituals. This study allowed her to explore the lifeways of marginalized groups, particularly women, who were able to express themselves more fully in this informal context than in the political sphere in which they were poorly represented.

Prof. Effros’ work on the early middle ages is closely tied to current debates assessing the nature of Christian conversion, ethnic and gender identity, the survival of Roman mores in the West following Germanic migrations during the fourth and fifth centuries, and the contribution of new technologies in archaeology to our knowledge of this period. Together with Prof. Isabel Moreira at the University of Utah, she served as the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (Oxford 2020), which, with contributions from 50 archaeologists, art historians, and historians in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand, highlights some of the exciting work currently being undertaken on the Merovingian era. She recently collaborated with a group of French archaeologists and physical anthropologists in analyzing the exciting discovery of several late antique biological women found buried with weaponry at Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure) in France. She is currently editing a collaborative volume with sixteen essays entitled Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages which will be published by University of California Press.


Publications

Monographs

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, 1830-1870 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018; paperback edition January 2022; open access edition May 2023). 384 pp. Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize recognizing the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Uncovering the Germanic Past: Merovingian Archaeology in France 1830-1914, Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 453 pp.

Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 35 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 296 pp. Chapter 3: “Grave Goods and the Ritual Expression of Identity,” reprinted in Thomas F. X. Noble, ed. From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 189-232.

Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul, “The New Middle Ages” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 196 pp.

Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002; paperback edition, 2009). 270 pp.

Edited Volumes

Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (forty-six essays co-edited with Isabel Moreira) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 1141 pp.

Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (sixteen essays co-edited with Guolong Lai) (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018). 501 pp.

Journal Articles

(co-authored with Hannah Schofield-Lea), “‘The dignity that may clothe a tradesman’s life’:  Joseph Mayer and Antiquarian Patronage in Nineteenth-Century England,” Northern History 60.2 (2023): 168-202. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2023.2185173

(co-authored by Mark Guillon, David Jouneau, Bonnie Effros, Noémie Rolland, Noémie Gryspeirt, Frédéric Santos, and Rozenn Colleter), “À armes égales : femmes et armement dans le cimetière mérovingien de Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure, France),” Archéologie médiévale 52 (2022): 47-69.

“A New Age of Saint Augustine? Antoine-Adolphe Dupuch, François Bourgade, and the Christians of North Africa (1838-1858),” Medieval Worlds: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies 16 (2022): 26-43.

“Reviving Carthage’s Martyrs: Archaeology, Memory, and Catholic Devotion in the French Protectorate of Tunisia,” Archeologia Medievale 46 (2019): 65-73.

“Berber Genealogy and the Politics of Prehistoric Archaeology and Craniology in French Algeria (1860s to 1880s),” British Journal of the History of Science 50.1 (2017): 61-81.

“The Enduring Attraction of the Pirenne Thesis,” Speculum 92.1 (January 2017): 184-208.

“Museum-Building in Nineteenth-Century Algeria: Colonial Narratives in French Collections of Classical Antiquities,” Journal of the History of Collections 28.2 (2016): 243-259.

“Blaming it on the ‘Barbarians’: Alleged Uses of Nose-Cutting among the Franks,” Journal of Women’s History 26.1 (2014): 74-80.

“Looking for Christians among the Barbarians: Merovingian-Era Cemeteries and the Origins of Medieval France,” Quaestiones medii aevi novae 17 (2012): 57-68.

“‘Elle pensait comme un homme et sentait comme une femme’: Hortense Lacroix Cornu (1809-1875) and the Musée des antiquités nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” Journal of the History of Collections 24 (2012): 25-43.

“Thoughts on the Provenance of Some Merovingian-Era Buckles at the University of Missouri,” MVSE: Annual of the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri 44 & 45 (2010-2011): 59-79.

“Selling Archaeology and Anthropology: Early Medieval Artifacts at the Expositions universelles and the Wiener Weltausstellung, 1867-1900,” Early Medieval Europe 16.1 (2008): 23-48.

“Art of the ‘Dark Ages’: Showing Merovingian Artefacts in North American Public and Private Collections,” Journal of the History of Collections 17.1 (2005): 85-113.

“Skeletal Sex and Gender in Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology,” Antiquity 74 (2000): 632-639.

“De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of
Christianization or the Suppression of Saxon Identity?” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 75 (1997): 267-286.

“Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation,” Early Medieval Europe 6,1 (1997): 1-23.

“Symbolic Expressions of Sanctity: Gertrude of Nivelles in the Context of Merovingian Mortuary Custom,” Viator 27 (1996): 1-10.

“Usuard’s Journey to Spain and Its Influence on the Dissemination of the Cult of the Cordovan Martyrs,” Comitatus 21 (1990): 21-37.

“Images of Sanctity: Contrasting Descriptions of Radegund by Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours,” UCLA Historical Journal 10 (1990): 38-58.

Book Chapters

“St Martial, Disciple of Christ: Apostolic Conversion Stories and the Crisis of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century France,” in Francesco Borri, Cristina La Rocca, and Francesco Veronese (eds.), Masculinities in Early Medieval Europe: Tradition and Innovation, 450-1050 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 209-232.

“Bodily Objects: Encounters with Material Culture,” in Julie Lund and Sarah Semple (eds.), A Cultural History of Medieval Objects  (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 171-188.

(with Isabel Moreira), “Pushing the Boundaries of the Merovingian World” in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 3-33.

“Two Centuries of Excavating Merovingian-Era Cemeteries in France,“ in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 77-97.

“Elizabeth de Bierbais and the Relics of Gertrude of Nivelles,” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlothueber (eds.), The Liber ordinarius of Nivelles (Houghton Library, MS Lat 422): Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection, Spätmittelalter, Humanism and the Reformation: Studies in the Late Middle Ages 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), pp. 153-163.

“Colliding Empires: French Display of Roman Antiquities Expropriated from Post-Conquest Algeria (1830-1870),” in Leora Auslander and Tara Zahra (eds.), Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), pp. 50-70.

“Indigenous Voices at the Margins: Nuancing the History of French Colonial Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Algeria,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. 201-225.

(with Guolong Lai), “The Global Reach of Imperial and Colonial Archaeology,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy  (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. xxi-xxxi.

“Casimir Barrière-Flavy and the (Re)Discovery of Visigoths in Southwestern France,” in Steffen Patzold, Anja Rathmann-Lutz und Volker Scior (eds.), Bilder, Texte und Begriffe aus dem Mittelalter. Festschrift für Hans-Werner Goetz (Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau, 2012), pp. 559-576.

“Contested Origins: French and German Views of a Shared Archaeological Heritage in Lorraine,” in Gábor Klaniczay and Michael Werner (eds.), Multiple Antiquities—Multiple Modernities: Ancient History in Nineteenth-Century European Cultures (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011), pp. 305-333.

“Writing History from Manuscript and Artifact: Building an Object-Based Narrative of the Early Middle Ages in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France,” in Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users: A Special Issue of Viator in Honor of Richard and Mary Rouse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 133-150.

“Anthropology and Ancestry in Nineteenth-Century France: Craniometric Profiles of Merovingian-Period Populations,” in Walter Pohl and Mathias Mehofer (eds.), Archäologie der Identität, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 17 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), pp. 233-244.

“The Germanic Invasions and the Academic Politics of National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in János Bak, Jörg Jarnut, Pierre Monnet, and Bernd Schneidmüller (eds.), Gebrauch und Missbrauch des Mittelalters, 19.-21.Jahrhundert/Uses and Abuses of the Middle Ages, 19th-21st Century/Usages et mésuages du Moyen Age du XIXe au XXIe siècle, MittelalterStudien 17 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2009), pp. 81-94.

“Artistic, Scholarly, and Popular Depictions of the ‘première race’ in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in Helmut Reimitz and Bernhard Zeller (eds.), Vergangenheit und Vergegenwärtigung: Frühes Mittelalter und europäische Erinnerungskultur, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 14 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), pp. 71-91.

“Auf der Suche nach Frankreichs ersten Christen: Camille de la Croix und die Schwierigkeiten eines Klerikers als Archäologe im späten 19. Jahrhundert,” in Sebastian Brather (ed.), Zwischen Spätantike und Mittelalter: Archäeologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände 57 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 119-146.

“Dressing Conservatively: Women’s Brooches as Markers of Ethnic Identity?” in Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender and the Transformation of the Early Middle Ages, East and West 300-900 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 165-184.

“A Century of Remembrance and Amnesia in the Excavation, Display, and Interpretation of Early Medieval Burial Artifacts,” in Jörg Jarnut and Matthias Wemhoff (eds.), Erinnerungskultur im Bestattungsritual. Archäologisch-Historisches Forum (Paderborn: Institut zur Interdisziplinären Erforschung des Mittelalters und seines Nachwirkens, 2003), pp. 75-96.

“Memories of the Early Medieval Past: Grave Artifacts in Nineteenth-Century France and America,” in Howard Williams (ed.), Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), pp. 255-280.

“The Ritual Significance of Vessels in the Formation of Merovingian Christian Communities,” in Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (eds.), The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artifacts, Transformation of the Roman World 12 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003), pp.213-227.

“Appearance and Ideology: Creating Distinctions between Clerics and Lay Persons in Early Medieval Gaul” in Janet Snyder and Desirée Koslin (eds.), Encountering Medieval Dress and Textiles: Objects, Texts and Images (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp.7-24.

“Monuments and Memory: The Repossession of Ancient Remains in Early Medieval Gaul,” in Mayke de Jong and Frans Theuws (eds.), Topographies of Power in the Early Medieval West, Transformation of the Roman World 6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), pp.93-118.

Conference Proceedings

“Une histoire de l’archéologie du haut Moyen Âge en France et quelques perspectives sur la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées,” in Yves Henigfeld and Édith Peytremann (eds.), Un monde en mouvement : la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées à l’époque mérovingienne (Ve-VIIIe siècle). 40e Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Oct 2019, Nantes, France, Mémoires de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 37 (Caen: Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne, 2022), pp. 23-35.

“Afterword: Whose ‘Dark Ages’?” in Howard Williams and Pauline Clark (eds.), Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020), pp. 347-355.

“Le strategie dell’archeologia cristiana tra fine Ottocento e inizi Novecento,” in Alessandro di Muro and Richard Hodges (eds.), Il santuario di San Michele a Olevano sul Tusciano: Culto dei santi e pellegrinaggi nell’altomedioevo (secc. VI-XI). Atti del Convegno Internazionale “La Grotta di San Michele ad Olevano sul Tusciano” Salerno, 24-25 novembre 2018 (Rome: Viella, 2019), pp. 159-170.

“Peur du genre? Oublier les Amazones pour mieux connaître les femmes du haut moyen âge,” Bulletin de Liaison de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 40 (2016): 83-89.

“La professionalisation de l’archéologie mérovingienne au XIXe siècle,” in Claude Lorren (ed.), La Gaule, le monde insulaire et l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen Âge. Actualité de l’archéologie en Normandie (Ve-Xe siècles). Actes des XXVIIe Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Caen, 29 septembre – 1er octobre 2006, Mémoires de l’AFAM XXVIII (Paris: AFAM, 2013), pp. 355-363.

Other

(with Elizabeth Morrison and Christopher Baswell), “Richard Rouse (Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America),” Speculum 98.3 (2023): 999-1002.

“Writing Materials: The Politics and Preservation of Knowledge,” in Sophia Acord, Kevin Jones, and Marsha Bryant (eds.), Impact of Materials on Society (Gainesville: Library Press @ UF, 2021). https://ufl.pb.unizin.org/imos/

“Alfred-Louis Delattre, Christian Missions, and the Ancient Lamps of Carthage,” in Mirjam Kars, Roos van Oosten, Marcus A. Roxburgh, and Arno Verhoeven (eds.), Rural Riches and Royal Rags? Studies on Medieval and Modern Archaeology Presented to Frans Theuws  (Zwolle: SPA-Uitgevers, 2018), pp. 230-232.

“Gertrude of Nivelles” and “Jouarre and Chelles” (latter with Katrinette Boudarwé) in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge Revivals: Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages Book 14) (London: Routledge, 2017), online version.

“Faire de l’archéologie chrétienne en France à la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Marianne Delcourt-Vlaeminck (ed.), Le R. P de la Croix, un Tournaisien archéologue. Exposition créée au Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai (Belgique) du 15 octobre 2016 au 17 avril 2017 (Tournai: Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai, 2016), pp. 40-43.

“Death and Burial,” in Daniel E. Bornstein (ed.), Medieval Christianity, A People’s History of Christianity 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), pp. 53-74.

“Archaeology”, “Gertrude,” and “Grave Goods” in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 26-28; 322-323; 332-334.

“Das Bestattungsritual als gesellschaftliches Bedürfnis,” in Sein & Sinn: Burg & Mensch, edited by Falko Daim and Thomas Kühtreiber, Niederösterreichische Landausstellung 2001 (St. Pöllten: Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, 2001), pp.119-122

“Belts,” in Glen Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar (eds.), Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp.339-340.

“Bollandists and Maurists,” “Franz Cumont,” “Einhard,” “Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges,” “Gregory of Tours,” “Charles-Victor Langlois,” “Ferdinand Lot,” “Jean Mabillon,” “Bernard de Montfaucon,” “Nithard,” “Prehistory, ideas of and study of,” and “Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont,” in Daniel Woolf (ed.), The Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998), vol. 1, pp.97-99; 215; 264-265; 342-343; 383; vol. 2, pp.532-533; 573; 578-579; 632-633; 662; 735-737; 889-890.

Forthcoming Work

“Judeo-Christian Faith and the Practice of Sacred Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century,” to appear in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology, edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Laura Coltofean (in press and will appear in 2024). 8,000 words.

“Late Antique Cemeteries,” to appear in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Late Antique Art and Archaeology, edited by Neil Christie, R. Jensen, Jodi Magness, and Leonard Rutgers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). (revised 2024 and in press). 10,000 words.

“The Making and Unmaking of a Wax Saint: Prosper Guéranger and the Cult of the Catacomb Martyr Leontius,” French Historical Studies (accepted in July 2024 for publication in 2025). 11,000 words.

(editor) Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages (forthcoming collected volume under contract with University of California Press). 16 essays.

“The Challenges of Christian Archaeology in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” to appear in Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. Wood, edited by N. Kivilcim Yavuz and Richard Broome (Leeds: Kismet Press). (submitted June 2016). 5,000 words.

“Le Père de la Croix dans le contexte de l’archéologie chrétienne à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle,” to appear in L’Hypogée des Dunes à Poitiers: une lecture archéologique renouvelée, edited by Bénédicte Palazzo-Bertholon and Cécile Treffort (revised June 2016). 6,500 words.


Awards

Individual Fellowships/Grants

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2024.

Recipient, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2023-2025.

Recipient, UBC Hampton Grant, 2022-2024.

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2022.

Recipient, Research Grant, Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 2021.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Grant, Summer 2019.

Lambarde Fund Grant, Society of Antiquaries of London, Spring 2019.

Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize, which recognizes the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Fellow, Royal Historical Society, 2017-present.

Invited Scholar, Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Université de Poitiers, France, 2015-2016.

International Educator of the Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, November 2014.

Member, School of Historical Studies (Modern History), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 2013-2014.

Recipient, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2013.

Imagining America Research Fellow, Public Humanities Centers and Institutes Collaboratory, 2010-2012.

Max Arthur Cohn and Sarah Waldstein Cohn Memorial Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2009-2010.

Cohn Lecturer and Sheppard Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2008-2009.

Visiting Fellow, Wittgenstein Projekt, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Spring 2007.

Visiting Fellow, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz, Fall 2006.

Forsyth Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2005-2006.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, 2004.

Sylvan C. Coleman and Pamela Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001-2002.

Berkshire Summer Fellow at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, 1998.

Camargo Foundation Residential Fellow, Cassis, France, September-December 1997.

American Council of Learned Societies, Recipient of Travel Grant, Summer, 1996.

Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, awarded by the American Historical Association, November 1995.

Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Alberta, August 1994-December 1995).

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Stipendiatin, Munich, 1991-1992.

Doctoral Qualifying Exams awarded with Distinction, UCLA, August 1991.

Summa cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Brandeis University, May 1987.

Institutional Grants

Principal Investigator (2017), “Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities,” an implementation grant awarded by the program for Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities at the Mellon Foundation ($400,000) to the University of Florida to fund the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s cultivation of working groups diversifying the teaching of general education courses on grand challenge questions in the humanities (October 2017-September 2020).

Principal Investigator (2015), “Humanities and the Sunshine State: Exploring Florida’s Past, Present, and Future,” Summer Seminar for High School Students grant ($20,000) from the Florida Humanities Council awarded to support a one-week high school program in the humanities at the University of Florida, 14-19 June 2015.

Co-Investigator (with Guolong Lai) of an International Workshop (2014) “Unmasking Ideology: The Vocabulary and Symbols of Colonial Archaeology”, partially supported by the American Council of Learned Societies’ Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society program, funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange ($10,037), and held at the University of Florida, 8-11 January 2015.

Principal Investigator (2010), “Interdisciplinary Team-Teaching Initiative in the Humanities,” funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation ($10,000) for programming at the University of Florida.

Co-Investigator (2010), with three others, of an Imagining America Critical Exchange Grant ($2,500) in partnership with humanities centers at Syracuse University, Northeastern University, and Auburn University, 2010 .


Graduate Supervision

In supervising graduate students, I am eager to work with students on the history of archaeology and museums in Europe and colonial contexts, whether focused on the continent or in Britain.

I am interested in exploring topics in late antique and early medieval history of Western Europe, particularly projects that examine Christianity, gender, ethnicity, or themes that make use of archaeological evidence.

Since work in the medieval field requires proficiency in Latin and at least two modern languages, and research on nineteenth-century archaeology and museums mandates proficiency in at least one modern language, students should begin this preparation as early as possible in their studies.


Bonnie Effros

she/her
Department Head, Professor
Office Hours
during term: Wednesdays 10-12, and by appointment (please arrange via email).
Regional Research Area
Education

PhD History, UCLA 1994
MA History, UCLA 1990
BA History, Brandeis University 1987


About

Bonnie Effros has been Professor and Head of the History Department at UBC since January 2022. Prior to this, she was Professor of European History and the Chaddock Chair in Economic and Social History at the University of Liverpool (2017-2021). Her research and teaching address a number of chronological and thematic fields, including the history of archaeology, antiquarianism, and collecting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; late antique and early medieval history and archaeology; and gender history and archaeology. The main geographic focus of her research is nineteenth- and twentieth-century France and its colonial possessions. However, her teaching addresses topics related to northwestern Europe and the lands surrounding the Mediterranean basin in both the early Middle Ages and the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Before Liverpool, Prof. Effros taught at the University of Florida, where she served as the inaugural Robert and Margaret Rothman Chair and Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and had an appointment as a professor of history (2009-2017). This position followed on her post as an associate professor and professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University (SUNY) (2001-2009), where she served as departmental chair from 2004 to 2006. At Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, she was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies (1996-2001). From 1994 to 1995, she held an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

Prof. Effros is the series editor of the Brill Series on the Early Middle Ages, a continuation of the Transformation of the Roman World series published by E.J. Brill in the Netherlands (2004-present) and she is a book review editor (2021-present) and member of the editorial board of Studies in Late Antiquity published by University of California Press (2016-present). From 2023-2026, she is serving as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America (her first term was in 2011-2014, and she then served as a member of the Executive Committee from 2013-2014). For several years, Prof. Effros served as a sponsored lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America.


Teaching


Research

Provincial and National Archaeology in France and Britain

For the last two decades, Prof. Effros has examined early developments in nineteenth-century antiquarianism and archaeology, beginning with growing interest in France in the early medieval past which was sparked by the discovery of long-forgotten cemeteries during the course of the industrial revolution. Finds of graves of “Germanic warriors” pushed the French to reconsider their national origins, which could no longer be linked exclusively to the ancient Gauls. This project also allowed her to examine the impact of the formation of the discipline of archaeology on the collection and interpretation of material artifacts, and their manner in which they were traded, collected, displayed, and interpreted in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Prof. Effros’ current monograph project investigates the career of Père Camille de la Croix (d.1911), a Jesuit archaeologist of Belgian nationality who was active in Poitiers (and the Vienne more generally) in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. She is particularly interested in his excavations at the Hypogée des Dunes and the baptistère Saint-Jean in Poitiers, and their contribution to a contested discourse on France’s early Christian past that was deeply entwined with ultramontane controversies of the period. This book project addresses the divisiveness of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the impact of the First Vatican Council and the rise of antisemitism on the publications of clerical scholars. It puts medieval archaeological and hagiographical research conducted in southwestern France in its historical context and demonstrates how Christian archaeology helped promote problematic claims for the conversion of France to Christianity in the first century. Related to this project, supported by a SSHRC Insight Development grant (2023-2025), she is working on several articles on the exportation of catacomb martyrs from Rome to France and North Africa in the nineteenth century.

Since 2020, Prof. Effros has also conducted research on the fascinating career and collections of the Liverpool silversmith and jeweller, Joseph Mayer (d. 1886), whose purchases included the eighteenth-century collection of Rev. Faussett of Anglo-Saxon-period antiquities from Kent. As one of the co-founders of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Mayer made foundational contributions to cultural and intellectual life in the city of Liverpool. His donation of his very important and varied collections (including everything from Egyptian antiquities to Wedgwood pottery) to the Corporation of Liverpool in 1867 made the city’s museum one of the richest collections in nineteenth-century Britain. Today his former holdings are part of the permanent collections of Liverpool’s World Museum, the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum of Liverpool.

French Colonial Archaeology in Algeria and Tunisia

In 2018, Prof. Effros published a monograph on French colonial archaeology in North Africa. It examines how in the course of the French invasion and subsequent “pacification” of the region that became Algeria, the armée d’Afrique confiscated homes, land, and mosques from the indigenous population and massacred tribes that resisted French domination. Along with the normalization of violence against civilian inhabitants, classical monuments fared badly, being reused as fortifications or destroyed as materiel for building French barracks, roads, and hospitals. This project studies the contributions of nineteenth-century military officers, who, raised on classical accounts of warfare and often trained as cartographers, developed interest in the Roman remains they encountered throughout Algeria. Linking archaeological studies of the Roman past to French narratives of the Algerian occupation, the project examines how Roman archaeology helped foster a new identity for military and civilian settlers and critiques the close entanglement of classical studies with politics in colonial and metropolitan France. Closely related to this project is a volume of sixteen essays by international experts on imperial and colonial archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth century that she co-edited with art historian, Prof. Guolong Lai (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018).

Prof. Effros continues to work on North Africa, now focusing on Christian archaeology in Tunisia from the 1840s. For the period from the 1870s onward, she has used the rich archives of the Société des missionnaires d’Afrique (Rome) to understand better the excavations of Alfred-Louis Delattre (d. 1932) who excavated Christian and Punic remains in Carthage for nearly fifty years.

Early Medieval Burial and Feasting Rituals; Early Medieval Gender and Christian Spirituality

Prof. Effros’ early medieval research focused on the interpretation of burial ritual in communities in Merovingian Gaul. Her first two books examined written and archaeological evidence related to the treatment and burial of the dead in post-Roman Gaul. Due to her interest in material remains, particularly important because of the scarcity of documents attesting to early medieval ritual practices, she dedicated her third monograph to examining early medieval feasting and fasting rituals. This study allowed her to explore the lifeways of marginalized groups, particularly women, who were able to express themselves more fully in this informal context than in the political sphere in which they were poorly represented.

Prof. Effros’ work on the early middle ages is closely tied to current debates assessing the nature of Christian conversion, ethnic and gender identity, the survival of Roman mores in the West following Germanic migrations during the fourth and fifth centuries, and the contribution of new technologies in archaeology to our knowledge of this period. Together with Prof. Isabel Moreira at the University of Utah, she served as the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (Oxford 2020), which, with contributions from 50 archaeologists, art historians, and historians in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand, highlights some of the exciting work currently being undertaken on the Merovingian era. She recently collaborated with a group of French archaeologists and physical anthropologists in analyzing the exciting discovery of several late antique biological women found buried with weaponry at Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure) in France. She is currently editing a collaborative volume with sixteen essays entitled Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages which will be published by University of California Press.


Publications

Monographs

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, 1830-1870 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018; paperback edition January 2022; open access edition May 2023). 384 pp. Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize recognizing the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Uncovering the Germanic Past: Merovingian Archaeology in France 1830-1914, Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 453 pp.

Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 35 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 296 pp. Chapter 3: “Grave Goods and the Ritual Expression of Identity,” reprinted in Thomas F. X. Noble, ed. From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 189-232.

Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul, “The New Middle Ages” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 196 pp.

Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002; paperback edition, 2009). 270 pp.

Edited Volumes

Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (forty-six essays co-edited with Isabel Moreira) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 1141 pp.

Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (sixteen essays co-edited with Guolong Lai) (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018). 501 pp.

Journal Articles

(co-authored with Hannah Schofield-Lea), “‘The dignity that may clothe a tradesman’s life’:  Joseph Mayer and Antiquarian Patronage in Nineteenth-Century England,” Northern History 60.2 (2023): 168-202. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2023.2185173

(co-authored by Mark Guillon, David Jouneau, Bonnie Effros, Noémie Rolland, Noémie Gryspeirt, Frédéric Santos, and Rozenn Colleter), “À armes égales : femmes et armement dans le cimetière mérovingien de Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure, France),” Archéologie médiévale 52 (2022): 47-69.

“A New Age of Saint Augustine? Antoine-Adolphe Dupuch, François Bourgade, and the Christians of North Africa (1838-1858),” Medieval Worlds: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies 16 (2022): 26-43.

“Reviving Carthage’s Martyrs: Archaeology, Memory, and Catholic Devotion in the French Protectorate of Tunisia,” Archeologia Medievale 46 (2019): 65-73.

“Berber Genealogy and the Politics of Prehistoric Archaeology and Craniology in French Algeria (1860s to 1880s),” British Journal of the History of Science 50.1 (2017): 61-81.

“The Enduring Attraction of the Pirenne Thesis,” Speculum 92.1 (January 2017): 184-208.

“Museum-Building in Nineteenth-Century Algeria: Colonial Narratives in French Collections of Classical Antiquities,” Journal of the History of Collections 28.2 (2016): 243-259.

“Blaming it on the ‘Barbarians’: Alleged Uses of Nose-Cutting among the Franks,” Journal of Women’s History 26.1 (2014): 74-80.

“Looking for Christians among the Barbarians: Merovingian-Era Cemeteries and the Origins of Medieval France,” Quaestiones medii aevi novae 17 (2012): 57-68.

“‘Elle pensait comme un homme et sentait comme une femme’: Hortense Lacroix Cornu (1809-1875) and the Musée des antiquités nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” Journal of the History of Collections 24 (2012): 25-43.

“Thoughts on the Provenance of Some Merovingian-Era Buckles at the University of Missouri,” MVSE: Annual of the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri 44 & 45 (2010-2011): 59-79.

“Selling Archaeology and Anthropology: Early Medieval Artifacts at the Expositions universelles and the Wiener Weltausstellung, 1867-1900,” Early Medieval Europe 16.1 (2008): 23-48.

“Art of the ‘Dark Ages’: Showing Merovingian Artefacts in North American Public and Private Collections,” Journal of the History of Collections 17.1 (2005): 85-113.

“Skeletal Sex and Gender in Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology,” Antiquity 74 (2000): 632-639.

“De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of
Christianization or the Suppression of Saxon Identity?” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 75 (1997): 267-286.

“Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation,” Early Medieval Europe 6,1 (1997): 1-23.

“Symbolic Expressions of Sanctity: Gertrude of Nivelles in the Context of Merovingian Mortuary Custom,” Viator 27 (1996): 1-10.

“Usuard’s Journey to Spain and Its Influence on the Dissemination of the Cult of the Cordovan Martyrs,” Comitatus 21 (1990): 21-37.

“Images of Sanctity: Contrasting Descriptions of Radegund by Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours,” UCLA Historical Journal 10 (1990): 38-58.

Book Chapters

“St Martial, Disciple of Christ: Apostolic Conversion Stories and the Crisis of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century France,” in Francesco Borri, Cristina La Rocca, and Francesco Veronese (eds.), Masculinities in Early Medieval Europe: Tradition and Innovation, 450-1050 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 209-232.

“Bodily Objects: Encounters with Material Culture,” in Julie Lund and Sarah Semple (eds.), A Cultural History of Medieval Objects  (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 171-188.

(with Isabel Moreira), “Pushing the Boundaries of the Merovingian World” in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 3-33.

“Two Centuries of Excavating Merovingian-Era Cemeteries in France,“ in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 77-97.

“Elizabeth de Bierbais and the Relics of Gertrude of Nivelles,” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlothueber (eds.), The Liber ordinarius of Nivelles (Houghton Library, MS Lat 422): Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection, Spätmittelalter, Humanism and the Reformation: Studies in the Late Middle Ages 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), pp. 153-163.

“Colliding Empires: French Display of Roman Antiquities Expropriated from Post-Conquest Algeria (1830-1870),” in Leora Auslander and Tara Zahra (eds.), Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), pp. 50-70.

“Indigenous Voices at the Margins: Nuancing the History of French Colonial Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Algeria,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. 201-225.

(with Guolong Lai), “The Global Reach of Imperial and Colonial Archaeology,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy  (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. xxi-xxxi.

“Casimir Barrière-Flavy and the (Re)Discovery of Visigoths in Southwestern France,” in Steffen Patzold, Anja Rathmann-Lutz und Volker Scior (eds.), Bilder, Texte und Begriffe aus dem Mittelalter. Festschrift für Hans-Werner Goetz (Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau, 2012), pp. 559-576.

“Contested Origins: French and German Views of a Shared Archaeological Heritage in Lorraine,” in Gábor Klaniczay and Michael Werner (eds.), Multiple Antiquities—Multiple Modernities: Ancient History in Nineteenth-Century European Cultures (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011), pp. 305-333.

“Writing History from Manuscript and Artifact: Building an Object-Based Narrative of the Early Middle Ages in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France,” in Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users: A Special Issue of Viator in Honor of Richard and Mary Rouse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 133-150.

“Anthropology and Ancestry in Nineteenth-Century France: Craniometric Profiles of Merovingian-Period Populations,” in Walter Pohl and Mathias Mehofer (eds.), Archäologie der Identität, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 17 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), pp. 233-244.

“The Germanic Invasions and the Academic Politics of National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in János Bak, Jörg Jarnut, Pierre Monnet, and Bernd Schneidmüller (eds.), Gebrauch und Missbrauch des Mittelalters, 19.-21.Jahrhundert/Uses and Abuses of the Middle Ages, 19th-21st Century/Usages et mésuages du Moyen Age du XIXe au XXIe siècle, MittelalterStudien 17 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2009), pp. 81-94.

“Artistic, Scholarly, and Popular Depictions of the ‘première race’ in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in Helmut Reimitz and Bernhard Zeller (eds.), Vergangenheit und Vergegenwärtigung: Frühes Mittelalter und europäische Erinnerungskultur, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 14 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), pp. 71-91.

“Auf der Suche nach Frankreichs ersten Christen: Camille de la Croix und die Schwierigkeiten eines Klerikers als Archäologe im späten 19. Jahrhundert,” in Sebastian Brather (ed.), Zwischen Spätantike und Mittelalter: Archäeologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände 57 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 119-146.

“Dressing Conservatively: Women’s Brooches as Markers of Ethnic Identity?” in Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender and the Transformation of the Early Middle Ages, East and West 300-900 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 165-184.

“A Century of Remembrance and Amnesia in the Excavation, Display, and Interpretation of Early Medieval Burial Artifacts,” in Jörg Jarnut and Matthias Wemhoff (eds.), Erinnerungskultur im Bestattungsritual. Archäologisch-Historisches Forum (Paderborn: Institut zur Interdisziplinären Erforschung des Mittelalters und seines Nachwirkens, 2003), pp. 75-96.

“Memories of the Early Medieval Past: Grave Artifacts in Nineteenth-Century France and America,” in Howard Williams (ed.), Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), pp. 255-280.

“The Ritual Significance of Vessels in the Formation of Merovingian Christian Communities,” in Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (eds.), The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artifacts, Transformation of the Roman World 12 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003), pp.213-227.

“Appearance and Ideology: Creating Distinctions between Clerics and Lay Persons in Early Medieval Gaul” in Janet Snyder and Desirée Koslin (eds.), Encountering Medieval Dress and Textiles: Objects, Texts and Images (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp.7-24.

“Monuments and Memory: The Repossession of Ancient Remains in Early Medieval Gaul,” in Mayke de Jong and Frans Theuws (eds.), Topographies of Power in the Early Medieval West, Transformation of the Roman World 6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), pp.93-118.

Conference Proceedings

“Une histoire de l’archéologie du haut Moyen Âge en France et quelques perspectives sur la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées,” in Yves Henigfeld and Édith Peytremann (eds.), Un monde en mouvement : la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées à l’époque mérovingienne (Ve-VIIIe siècle). 40e Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Oct 2019, Nantes, France, Mémoires de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 37 (Caen: Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne, 2022), pp. 23-35.

“Afterword: Whose ‘Dark Ages’?” in Howard Williams and Pauline Clark (eds.), Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020), pp. 347-355.

“Le strategie dell’archeologia cristiana tra fine Ottocento e inizi Novecento,” in Alessandro di Muro and Richard Hodges (eds.), Il santuario di San Michele a Olevano sul Tusciano: Culto dei santi e pellegrinaggi nell’altomedioevo (secc. VI-XI). Atti del Convegno Internazionale “La Grotta di San Michele ad Olevano sul Tusciano” Salerno, 24-25 novembre 2018 (Rome: Viella, 2019), pp. 159-170.

“Peur du genre? Oublier les Amazones pour mieux connaître les femmes du haut moyen âge,” Bulletin de Liaison de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 40 (2016): 83-89.

“La professionalisation de l’archéologie mérovingienne au XIXe siècle,” in Claude Lorren (ed.), La Gaule, le monde insulaire et l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen Âge. Actualité de l’archéologie en Normandie (Ve-Xe siècles). Actes des XXVIIe Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Caen, 29 septembre – 1er octobre 2006, Mémoires de l’AFAM XXVIII (Paris: AFAM, 2013), pp. 355-363.

Other

(with Elizabeth Morrison and Christopher Baswell), “Richard Rouse (Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America),” Speculum 98.3 (2023): 999-1002.

“Writing Materials: The Politics and Preservation of Knowledge,” in Sophia Acord, Kevin Jones, and Marsha Bryant (eds.), Impact of Materials on Society (Gainesville: Library Press @ UF, 2021). https://ufl.pb.unizin.org/imos/

“Alfred-Louis Delattre, Christian Missions, and the Ancient Lamps of Carthage,” in Mirjam Kars, Roos van Oosten, Marcus A. Roxburgh, and Arno Verhoeven (eds.), Rural Riches and Royal Rags? Studies on Medieval and Modern Archaeology Presented to Frans Theuws  (Zwolle: SPA-Uitgevers, 2018), pp. 230-232.

“Gertrude of Nivelles” and “Jouarre and Chelles” (latter with Katrinette Boudarwé) in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge Revivals: Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages Book 14) (London: Routledge, 2017), online version.

“Faire de l’archéologie chrétienne en France à la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Marianne Delcourt-Vlaeminck (ed.), Le R. P de la Croix, un Tournaisien archéologue. Exposition créée au Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai (Belgique) du 15 octobre 2016 au 17 avril 2017 (Tournai: Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai, 2016), pp. 40-43.

“Death and Burial,” in Daniel E. Bornstein (ed.), Medieval Christianity, A People’s History of Christianity 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), pp. 53-74.

“Archaeology”, “Gertrude,” and “Grave Goods” in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 26-28; 322-323; 332-334.

“Das Bestattungsritual als gesellschaftliches Bedürfnis,” in Sein & Sinn: Burg & Mensch, edited by Falko Daim and Thomas Kühtreiber, Niederösterreichische Landausstellung 2001 (St. Pöllten: Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, 2001), pp.119-122

“Belts,” in Glen Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar (eds.), Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp.339-340.

“Bollandists and Maurists,” “Franz Cumont,” “Einhard,” “Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges,” “Gregory of Tours,” “Charles-Victor Langlois,” “Ferdinand Lot,” “Jean Mabillon,” “Bernard de Montfaucon,” “Nithard,” “Prehistory, ideas of and study of,” and “Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont,” in Daniel Woolf (ed.), The Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998), vol. 1, pp.97-99; 215; 264-265; 342-343; 383; vol. 2, pp.532-533; 573; 578-579; 632-633; 662; 735-737; 889-890.

Forthcoming Work

“Judeo-Christian Faith and the Practice of Sacred Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century,” to appear in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology, edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Laura Coltofean (in press and will appear in 2024). 8,000 words.

“Late Antique Cemeteries,” to appear in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Late Antique Art and Archaeology, edited by Neil Christie, R. Jensen, Jodi Magness, and Leonard Rutgers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). (revised 2024 and in press). 10,000 words.

“The Making and Unmaking of a Wax Saint: Prosper Guéranger and the Cult of the Catacomb Martyr Leontius,” French Historical Studies (accepted in July 2024 for publication in 2025). 11,000 words.

(editor) Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages (forthcoming collected volume under contract with University of California Press). 16 essays.

“The Challenges of Christian Archaeology in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” to appear in Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. Wood, edited by N. Kivilcim Yavuz and Richard Broome (Leeds: Kismet Press). (submitted June 2016). 5,000 words.

“Le Père de la Croix dans le contexte de l’archéologie chrétienne à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle,” to appear in L’Hypogée des Dunes à Poitiers: une lecture archéologique renouvelée, edited by Bénédicte Palazzo-Bertholon and Cécile Treffort (revised June 2016). 6,500 words.


Awards

Individual Fellowships/Grants

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2024.

Recipient, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2023-2025.

Recipient, UBC Hampton Grant, 2022-2024.

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2022.

Recipient, Research Grant, Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 2021.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Grant, Summer 2019.

Lambarde Fund Grant, Society of Antiquaries of London, Spring 2019.

Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize, which recognizes the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Fellow, Royal Historical Society, 2017-present.

Invited Scholar, Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Université de Poitiers, France, 2015-2016.

International Educator of the Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, November 2014.

Member, School of Historical Studies (Modern History), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 2013-2014.

Recipient, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2013.

Imagining America Research Fellow, Public Humanities Centers and Institutes Collaboratory, 2010-2012.

Max Arthur Cohn and Sarah Waldstein Cohn Memorial Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2009-2010.

Cohn Lecturer and Sheppard Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2008-2009.

Visiting Fellow, Wittgenstein Projekt, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Spring 2007.

Visiting Fellow, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz, Fall 2006.

Forsyth Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2005-2006.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, 2004.

Sylvan C. Coleman and Pamela Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001-2002.

Berkshire Summer Fellow at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, 1998.

Camargo Foundation Residential Fellow, Cassis, France, September-December 1997.

American Council of Learned Societies, Recipient of Travel Grant, Summer, 1996.

Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, awarded by the American Historical Association, November 1995.

Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Alberta, August 1994-December 1995).

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Stipendiatin, Munich, 1991-1992.

Doctoral Qualifying Exams awarded with Distinction, UCLA, August 1991.

Summa cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Brandeis University, May 1987.

Institutional Grants

Principal Investigator (2017), “Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities,” an implementation grant awarded by the program for Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities at the Mellon Foundation ($400,000) to the University of Florida to fund the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s cultivation of working groups diversifying the teaching of general education courses on grand challenge questions in the humanities (October 2017-September 2020).

Principal Investigator (2015), “Humanities and the Sunshine State: Exploring Florida’s Past, Present, and Future,” Summer Seminar for High School Students grant ($20,000) from the Florida Humanities Council awarded to support a one-week high school program in the humanities at the University of Florida, 14-19 June 2015.

Co-Investigator (with Guolong Lai) of an International Workshop (2014) “Unmasking Ideology: The Vocabulary and Symbols of Colonial Archaeology”, partially supported by the American Council of Learned Societies’ Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society program, funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange ($10,037), and held at the University of Florida, 8-11 January 2015.

Principal Investigator (2010), “Interdisciplinary Team-Teaching Initiative in the Humanities,” funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation ($10,000) for programming at the University of Florida.

Co-Investigator (2010), with three others, of an Imagining America Critical Exchange Grant ($2,500) in partnership with humanities centers at Syracuse University, Northeastern University, and Auburn University, 2010 .


Graduate Supervision

In supervising graduate students, I am eager to work with students on the history of archaeology and museums in Europe and colonial contexts, whether focused on the continent or in Britain.

I am interested in exploring topics in late antique and early medieval history of Western Europe, particularly projects that examine Christianity, gender, ethnicity, or themes that make use of archaeological evidence.

Since work in the medieval field requires proficiency in Latin and at least two modern languages, and research on nineteenth-century archaeology and museums mandates proficiency in at least one modern language, students should begin this preparation as early as possible in their studies.


Bonnie Effros

she/her
Department Head, Professor
Office Hours
during term: Wednesdays 10-12, and by appointment (please arrange via email).
Regional Research Area
Education

PhD History, UCLA 1994
MA History, UCLA 1990
BA History, Brandeis University 1987

About keyboard_arrow_down

Bonnie Effros has been Professor and Head of the History Department at UBC since January 2022. Prior to this, she was Professor of European History and the Chaddock Chair in Economic and Social History at the University of Liverpool (2017-2021). Her research and teaching address a number of chronological and thematic fields, including the history of archaeology, antiquarianism, and collecting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; late antique and early medieval history and archaeology; and gender history and archaeology. The main geographic focus of her research is nineteenth- and twentieth-century France and its colonial possessions. However, her teaching addresses topics related to northwestern Europe and the lands surrounding the Mediterranean basin in both the early Middle Ages and the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Before Liverpool, Prof. Effros taught at the University of Florida, where she served as the inaugural Robert and Margaret Rothman Chair and Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and had an appointment as a professor of history (2009-2017). This position followed on her post as an associate professor and professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University (SUNY) (2001-2009), where she served as departmental chair from 2004 to 2006. At Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, she was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies (1996-2001). From 1994 to 1995, she held an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

Prof. Effros is the series editor of the Brill Series on the Early Middle Ages, a continuation of the Transformation of the Roman World series published by E.J. Brill in the Netherlands (2004-present) and she is a book review editor (2021-present) and member of the editorial board of Studies in Late Antiquity published by University of California Press (2016-present). From 2023-2026, she is serving as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America (her first term was in 2011-2014, and she then served as a member of the Executive Committee from 2013-2014). For several years, Prof. Effros served as a sponsored lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America.

Teaching keyboard_arrow_down
Research keyboard_arrow_down

Provincial and National Archaeology in France and Britain

For the last two decades, Prof. Effros has examined early developments in nineteenth-century antiquarianism and archaeology, beginning with growing interest in France in the early medieval past which was sparked by the discovery of long-forgotten cemeteries during the course of the industrial revolution. Finds of graves of “Germanic warriors” pushed the French to reconsider their national origins, which could no longer be linked exclusively to the ancient Gauls. This project also allowed her to examine the impact of the formation of the discipline of archaeology on the collection and interpretation of material artifacts, and their manner in which they were traded, collected, displayed, and interpreted in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Prof. Effros’ current monograph project investigates the career of Père Camille de la Croix (d.1911), a Jesuit archaeologist of Belgian nationality who was active in Poitiers (and the Vienne more generally) in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. She is particularly interested in his excavations at the Hypogée des Dunes and the baptistère Saint-Jean in Poitiers, and their contribution to a contested discourse on France’s early Christian past that was deeply entwined with ultramontane controversies of the period. This book project addresses the divisiveness of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the impact of the First Vatican Council and the rise of antisemitism on the publications of clerical scholars. It puts medieval archaeological and hagiographical research conducted in southwestern France in its historical context and demonstrates how Christian archaeology helped promote problematic claims for the conversion of France to Christianity in the first century. Related to this project, supported by a SSHRC Insight Development grant (2023-2025), she is working on several articles on the exportation of catacomb martyrs from Rome to France and North Africa in the nineteenth century.

Since 2020, Prof. Effros has also conducted research on the fascinating career and collections of the Liverpool silversmith and jeweller, Joseph Mayer (d. 1886), whose purchases included the eighteenth-century collection of Rev. Faussett of Anglo-Saxon-period antiquities from Kent. As one of the co-founders of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Mayer made foundational contributions to cultural and intellectual life in the city of Liverpool. His donation of his very important and varied collections (including everything from Egyptian antiquities to Wedgwood pottery) to the Corporation of Liverpool in 1867 made the city’s museum one of the richest collections in nineteenth-century Britain. Today his former holdings are part of the permanent collections of Liverpool’s World Museum, the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum of Liverpool.

French Colonial Archaeology in Algeria and Tunisia

In 2018, Prof. Effros published a monograph on French colonial archaeology in North Africa. It examines how in the course of the French invasion and subsequent “pacification” of the region that became Algeria, the armée d’Afrique confiscated homes, land, and mosques from the indigenous population and massacred tribes that resisted French domination. Along with the normalization of violence against civilian inhabitants, classical monuments fared badly, being reused as fortifications or destroyed as materiel for building French barracks, roads, and hospitals. This project studies the contributions of nineteenth-century military officers, who, raised on classical accounts of warfare and often trained as cartographers, developed interest in the Roman remains they encountered throughout Algeria. Linking archaeological studies of the Roman past to French narratives of the Algerian occupation, the project examines how Roman archaeology helped foster a new identity for military and civilian settlers and critiques the close entanglement of classical studies with politics in colonial and metropolitan France. Closely related to this project is a volume of sixteen essays by international experts on imperial and colonial archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth century that she co-edited with art historian, Prof. Guolong Lai (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018).

Prof. Effros continues to work on North Africa, now focusing on Christian archaeology in Tunisia from the 1840s. For the period from the 1870s onward, she has used the rich archives of the Société des missionnaires d’Afrique (Rome) to understand better the excavations of Alfred-Louis Delattre (d. 1932) who excavated Christian and Punic remains in Carthage for nearly fifty years.

Early Medieval Burial and Feasting Rituals; Early Medieval Gender and Christian Spirituality

Prof. Effros’ early medieval research focused on the interpretation of burial ritual in communities in Merovingian Gaul. Her first two books examined written and archaeological evidence related to the treatment and burial of the dead in post-Roman Gaul. Due to her interest in material remains, particularly important because of the scarcity of documents attesting to early medieval ritual practices, she dedicated her third monograph to examining early medieval feasting and fasting rituals. This study allowed her to explore the lifeways of marginalized groups, particularly women, who were able to express themselves more fully in this informal context than in the political sphere in which they were poorly represented.

Prof. Effros’ work on the early middle ages is closely tied to current debates assessing the nature of Christian conversion, ethnic and gender identity, the survival of Roman mores in the West following Germanic migrations during the fourth and fifth centuries, and the contribution of new technologies in archaeology to our knowledge of this period. Together with Prof. Isabel Moreira at the University of Utah, she served as the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (Oxford 2020), which, with contributions from 50 archaeologists, art historians, and historians in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand, highlights some of the exciting work currently being undertaken on the Merovingian era. She recently collaborated with a group of French archaeologists and physical anthropologists in analyzing the exciting discovery of several late antique biological women found buried with weaponry at Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure) in France. She is currently editing a collaborative volume with sixteen essays entitled Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages which will be published by University of California Press.

Publications keyboard_arrow_down

Monographs

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, 1830-1870 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018; paperback edition January 2022; open access edition May 2023). 384 pp. Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize recognizing the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Uncovering the Germanic Past: Merovingian Archaeology in France 1830-1914, Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 453 pp.

Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 35 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 296 pp. Chapter 3: “Grave Goods and the Ritual Expression of Identity,” reprinted in Thomas F. X. Noble, ed. From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 189-232.

Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul, “The New Middle Ages” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 196 pp.

Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002; paperback edition, 2009). 270 pp.

Edited Volumes

Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (forty-six essays co-edited with Isabel Moreira) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 1141 pp.

Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (sixteen essays co-edited with Guolong Lai) (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018). 501 pp.

Journal Articles

(co-authored with Hannah Schofield-Lea), “‘The dignity that may clothe a tradesman’s life’:  Joseph Mayer and Antiquarian Patronage in Nineteenth-Century England,” Northern History 60.2 (2023): 168-202. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2023.2185173

(co-authored by Mark Guillon, David Jouneau, Bonnie Effros, Noémie Rolland, Noémie Gryspeirt, Frédéric Santos, and Rozenn Colleter), “À armes égales : femmes et armement dans le cimetière mérovingien de Romilly-sur-Andelle (Eure, France),” Archéologie médiévale 52 (2022): 47-69.

“A New Age of Saint Augustine? Antoine-Adolphe Dupuch, François Bourgade, and the Christians of North Africa (1838-1858),” Medieval Worlds: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies 16 (2022): 26-43.

“Reviving Carthage’s Martyrs: Archaeology, Memory, and Catholic Devotion in the French Protectorate of Tunisia,” Archeologia Medievale 46 (2019): 65-73.

“Berber Genealogy and the Politics of Prehistoric Archaeology and Craniology in French Algeria (1860s to 1880s),” British Journal of the History of Science 50.1 (2017): 61-81.

“The Enduring Attraction of the Pirenne Thesis,” Speculum 92.1 (January 2017): 184-208.

“Museum-Building in Nineteenth-Century Algeria: Colonial Narratives in French Collections of Classical Antiquities,” Journal of the History of Collections 28.2 (2016): 243-259.

“Blaming it on the ‘Barbarians’: Alleged Uses of Nose-Cutting among the Franks,” Journal of Women’s History 26.1 (2014): 74-80.

“Looking for Christians among the Barbarians: Merovingian-Era Cemeteries and the Origins of Medieval France,” Quaestiones medii aevi novae 17 (2012): 57-68.

“‘Elle pensait comme un homme et sentait comme une femme’: Hortense Lacroix Cornu (1809-1875) and the Musée des antiquités nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” Journal of the History of Collections 24 (2012): 25-43.

“Thoughts on the Provenance of Some Merovingian-Era Buckles at the University of Missouri,” MVSE: Annual of the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri 44 & 45 (2010-2011): 59-79.

“Selling Archaeology and Anthropology: Early Medieval Artifacts at the Expositions universelles and the Wiener Weltausstellung, 1867-1900,” Early Medieval Europe 16.1 (2008): 23-48.

“Art of the ‘Dark Ages’: Showing Merovingian Artefacts in North American Public and Private Collections,” Journal of the History of Collections 17.1 (2005): 85-113.

“Skeletal Sex and Gender in Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology,” Antiquity 74 (2000): 632-639.

“De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of
Christianization or the Suppression of Saxon Identity?” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 75 (1997): 267-286.

“Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation,” Early Medieval Europe 6,1 (1997): 1-23.

“Symbolic Expressions of Sanctity: Gertrude of Nivelles in the Context of Merovingian Mortuary Custom,” Viator 27 (1996): 1-10.

“Usuard’s Journey to Spain and Its Influence on the Dissemination of the Cult of the Cordovan Martyrs,” Comitatus 21 (1990): 21-37.

“Images of Sanctity: Contrasting Descriptions of Radegund by Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours,” UCLA Historical Journal 10 (1990): 38-58.

Book Chapters

“St Martial, Disciple of Christ: Apostolic Conversion Stories and the Crisis of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century France,” in Francesco Borri, Cristina La Rocca, and Francesco Veronese (eds.), Masculinities in Early Medieval Europe: Tradition and Innovation, 450-1050 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 209-232.

“Bodily Objects: Encounters with Material Culture,” in Julie Lund and Sarah Semple (eds.), A Cultural History of Medieval Objects  (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 171-188.

(with Isabel Moreira), “Pushing the Boundaries of the Merovingian World” in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 3-33.

“Two Centuries of Excavating Merovingian-Era Cemeteries in France,“ in Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 77-97.

“Elizabeth de Bierbais and the Relics of Gertrude of Nivelles,” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlothueber (eds.), The Liber ordinarius of Nivelles (Houghton Library, MS Lat 422): Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection, Spätmittelalter, Humanism and the Reformation: Studies in the Late Middle Ages 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), pp. 153-163.

“Colliding Empires: French Display of Roman Antiquities Expropriated from Post-Conquest Algeria (1830-1870),” in Leora Auslander and Tara Zahra (eds.), Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), pp. 50-70.

“Indigenous Voices at the Margins: Nuancing the History of French Colonial Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Algeria,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. 201-225.

(with Guolong Lai), “The Global Reach of Imperial and Colonial Archaeology,” in Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai (eds.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy  (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018), pp. xxi-xxxi.

“Casimir Barrière-Flavy and the (Re)Discovery of Visigoths in Southwestern France,” in Steffen Patzold, Anja Rathmann-Lutz und Volker Scior (eds.), Bilder, Texte und Begriffe aus dem Mittelalter. Festschrift für Hans-Werner Goetz (Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau, 2012), pp. 559-576.

“Contested Origins: French and German Views of a Shared Archaeological Heritage in Lorraine,” in Gábor Klaniczay and Michael Werner (eds.), Multiple Antiquities—Multiple Modernities: Ancient History in Nineteenth-Century European Cultures (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011), pp. 305-333.

“Writing History from Manuscript and Artifact: Building an Object-Based Narrative of the Early Middle Ages in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France,” in Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users: A Special Issue of Viator in Honor of Richard and Mary Rouse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 133-150.

“Anthropology and Ancestry in Nineteenth-Century France: Craniometric Profiles of Merovingian-Period Populations,” in Walter Pohl and Mathias Mehofer (eds.), Archäologie der Identität, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 17 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), pp. 233-244.

“The Germanic Invasions and the Academic Politics of National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in János Bak, Jörg Jarnut, Pierre Monnet, and Bernd Schneidmüller (eds.), Gebrauch und Missbrauch des Mittelalters, 19.-21.Jahrhundert/Uses and Abuses of the Middle Ages, 19th-21st Century/Usages et mésuages du Moyen Age du XIXe au XXIe siècle, MittelalterStudien 17 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2009), pp. 81-94.

“Artistic, Scholarly, and Popular Depictions of the ‘première race’ in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” in Helmut Reimitz and Bernhard Zeller (eds.), Vergangenheit und Vergegenwärtigung: Frühes Mittelalter und europäische Erinnerungskultur, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 14 (Vienna: Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), pp. 71-91.

“Auf der Suche nach Frankreichs ersten Christen: Camille de la Croix und die Schwierigkeiten eines Klerikers als Archäologe im späten 19. Jahrhundert,” in Sebastian Brather (ed.), Zwischen Spätantike und Mittelalter: Archäeologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände 57 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 119-146.

“Dressing Conservatively: Women’s Brooches as Markers of Ethnic Identity?” in Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender and the Transformation of the Early Middle Ages, East and West 300-900 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 165-184.

“A Century of Remembrance and Amnesia in the Excavation, Display, and Interpretation of Early Medieval Burial Artifacts,” in Jörg Jarnut and Matthias Wemhoff (eds.), Erinnerungskultur im Bestattungsritual. Archäologisch-Historisches Forum (Paderborn: Institut zur Interdisziplinären Erforschung des Mittelalters und seines Nachwirkens, 2003), pp. 75-96.

“Memories of the Early Medieval Past: Grave Artifacts in Nineteenth-Century France and America,” in Howard Williams (ed.), Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), pp. 255-280.

“The Ritual Significance of Vessels in the Formation of Merovingian Christian Communities,” in Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (eds.), The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artifacts, Transformation of the Roman World 12 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003), pp.213-227.

“Appearance and Ideology: Creating Distinctions between Clerics and Lay Persons in Early Medieval Gaul” in Janet Snyder and Desirée Koslin (eds.), Encountering Medieval Dress and Textiles: Objects, Texts and Images (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp.7-24.

“Monuments and Memory: The Repossession of Ancient Remains in Early Medieval Gaul,” in Mayke de Jong and Frans Theuws (eds.), Topographies of Power in the Early Medieval West, Transformation of the Roman World 6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), pp.93-118.

Conference Proceedings

“Une histoire de l’archéologie du haut Moyen Âge en France et quelques perspectives sur la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées,” in Yves Henigfeld and Édith Peytremann (eds.), Un monde en mouvement : la circulation des personnes, des biens et des idées à l’époque mérovingienne (Ve-VIIIe siècle). 40e Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Oct 2019, Nantes, France, Mémoires de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 37 (Caen: Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne, 2022), pp. 23-35.

“Afterword: Whose ‘Dark Ages’?” in Howard Williams and Pauline Clark (eds.), Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Public Archaeologies (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020), pp. 347-355.

“Le strategie dell’archeologia cristiana tra fine Ottocento e inizi Novecento,” in Alessandro di Muro and Richard Hodges (eds.), Il santuario di San Michele a Olevano sul Tusciano: Culto dei santi e pellegrinaggi nell’altomedioevo (secc. VI-XI). Atti del Convegno Internazionale “La Grotta di San Michele ad Olevano sul Tusciano” Salerno, 24-25 novembre 2018 (Rome: Viella, 2019), pp. 159-170.

“Peur du genre? Oublier les Amazones pour mieux connaître les femmes du haut moyen âge,” Bulletin de Liaison de l’Association française d’archéologie mérovingienne 40 (2016): 83-89.

“La professionalisation de l’archéologie mérovingienne au XIXe siècle,” in Claude Lorren (ed.), La Gaule, le monde insulaire et l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen Âge. Actualité de l’archéologie en Normandie (Ve-Xe siècles). Actes des XXVIIe Journées internationales d’Archéologie mérovingienne, Caen, 29 septembre – 1er octobre 2006, Mémoires de l’AFAM XXVIII (Paris: AFAM, 2013), pp. 355-363.

Other

(with Elizabeth Morrison and Christopher Baswell), “Richard Rouse (Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America),” Speculum 98.3 (2023): 999-1002.

“Writing Materials: The Politics and Preservation of Knowledge,” in Sophia Acord, Kevin Jones, and Marsha Bryant (eds.), Impact of Materials on Society (Gainesville: Library Press @ UF, 2021). https://ufl.pb.unizin.org/imos/

“Alfred-Louis Delattre, Christian Missions, and the Ancient Lamps of Carthage,” in Mirjam Kars, Roos van Oosten, Marcus A. Roxburgh, and Arno Verhoeven (eds.), Rural Riches and Royal Rags? Studies on Medieval and Modern Archaeology Presented to Frans Theuws  (Zwolle: SPA-Uitgevers, 2018), pp. 230-232.

“Gertrude of Nivelles” and “Jouarre and Chelles” (latter with Katrinette Boudarwé) in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge Revivals: Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages Book 14) (London: Routledge, 2017), online version.

“Faire de l’archéologie chrétienne en France à la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Marianne Delcourt-Vlaeminck (ed.), Le R. P de la Croix, un Tournaisien archéologue. Exposition créée au Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai (Belgique) du 15 octobre 2016 au 17 avril 2017 (Tournai: Musée d’Archéologie de Tournai, 2016), pp. 40-43.

“Death and Burial,” in Daniel E. Bornstein (ed.), Medieval Christianity, A People’s History of Christianity 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), pp. 53-74.

“Archaeology”, “Gertrude,” and “Grave Goods” in Margaret Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 26-28; 322-323; 332-334.

“Das Bestattungsritual als gesellschaftliches Bedürfnis,” in Sein & Sinn: Burg & Mensch, edited by Falko Daim and Thomas Kühtreiber, Niederösterreichische Landausstellung 2001 (St. Pöllten: Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, 2001), pp.119-122

“Belts,” in Glen Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar (eds.), Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp.339-340.

“Bollandists and Maurists,” “Franz Cumont,” “Einhard,” “Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges,” “Gregory of Tours,” “Charles-Victor Langlois,” “Ferdinand Lot,” “Jean Mabillon,” “Bernard de Montfaucon,” “Nithard,” “Prehistory, ideas of and study of,” and “Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont,” in Daniel Woolf (ed.), The Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998), vol. 1, pp.97-99; 215; 264-265; 342-343; 383; vol. 2, pp.532-533; 573; 578-579; 632-633; 662; 735-737; 889-890.

Forthcoming Work

“Judeo-Christian Faith and the Practice of Sacred Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century,” to appear in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology, edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Laura Coltofean (in press and will appear in 2024). 8,000 words.

“Late Antique Cemeteries,” to appear in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Late Antique Art and Archaeology, edited by Neil Christie, R. Jensen, Jodi Magness, and Leonard Rutgers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). (revised 2024 and in press). 10,000 words.

“The Making and Unmaking of a Wax Saint: Prosper Guéranger and the Cult of the Catacomb Martyr Leontius,” French Historical Studies (accepted in July 2024 for publication in 2025). 11,000 words.

(editor) Archaeology for Historians: How Material Evidence is Changing How We Understand the Early Middle Ages (forthcoming collected volume under contract with University of California Press). 16 essays.

“The Challenges of Christian Archaeology in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” to appear in Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. Wood, edited by N. Kivilcim Yavuz and Richard Broome (Leeds: Kismet Press). (submitted June 2016). 5,000 words.

“Le Père de la Croix dans le contexte de l’archéologie chrétienne à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle,” to appear in L’Hypogée des Dunes à Poitiers: une lecture archéologique renouvelée, edited by Bénédicte Palazzo-Bertholon and Cécile Treffort (revised June 2016). 6,500 words.

Awards keyboard_arrow_down

Individual Fellowships/Grants

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2024.

Recipient, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2023-2025.

Recipient, UBC Hampton Grant, 2022-2024.

Recipient, Research Grant, Center for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, June 2022.

Recipient, Research Grant, Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 2021.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Grant, Summer 2019.

Lambarde Fund Grant, Society of Antiquaries of London, Spring 2019.

Winner of the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2019 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize, which recognizes the best book dealing with the French colonial experience since 1815.

Fellow, Royal Historical Society, 2017-present.

Invited Scholar, Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Université de Poitiers, France, 2015-2016.

International Educator of the Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, November 2014.

Member, School of Historical Studies (Modern History), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 2013-2014.

Recipient, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2013.

Imagining America Research Fellow, Public Humanities Centers and Institutes Collaboratory, 2010-2012.

Max Arthur Cohn and Sarah Waldstein Cohn Memorial Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2009-2010.

Cohn Lecturer and Sheppard Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2008-2009.

Visiting Fellow, Wittgenstein Projekt, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Spring 2007.

Visiting Fellow, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz, Fall 2006.

Forsyth Lecturer, Archaeological Institute of America, 2005-2006.

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, 2004.

Sylvan C. Coleman and Pamela Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001-2002.

Berkshire Summer Fellow at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, 1998.

Camargo Foundation Residential Fellow, Cassis, France, September-December 1997.

American Council of Learned Societies, Recipient of Travel Grant, Summer, 1996.

Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, awarded by the American Historical Association, November 1995.

Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Alberta, August 1994-December 1995).

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Stipendiatin, Munich, 1991-1992.

Doctoral Qualifying Exams awarded with Distinction, UCLA, August 1991.

Summa cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Brandeis University, May 1987.

Institutional Grants

Principal Investigator (2017), “Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities,” an implementation grant awarded by the program for Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities at the Mellon Foundation ($400,000) to the University of Florida to fund the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s cultivation of working groups diversifying the teaching of general education courses on grand challenge questions in the humanities (October 2017-September 2020).

Principal Investigator (2015), “Humanities and the Sunshine State: Exploring Florida’s Past, Present, and Future,” Summer Seminar for High School Students grant ($20,000) from the Florida Humanities Council awarded to support a one-week high school program in the humanities at the University of Florida, 14-19 June 2015.

Co-Investigator (with Guolong Lai) of an International Workshop (2014) “Unmasking Ideology: The Vocabulary and Symbols of Colonial Archaeology”, partially supported by the American Council of Learned Societies’ Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society program, funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange ($10,037), and held at the University of Florida, 8-11 January 2015.

Principal Investigator (2010), “Interdisciplinary Team-Teaching Initiative in the Humanities,” funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation ($10,000) for programming at the University of Florida.

Co-Investigator (2010), with three others, of an Imagining America Critical Exchange Grant ($2,500) in partnership with humanities centers at Syracuse University, Northeastern University, and Auburn University, 2010 .

Graduate Supervision keyboard_arrow_down

In supervising graduate students, I am eager to work with students on the history of archaeology and museums in Europe and colonial contexts, whether focused on the continent or in Britain.

I am interested in exploring topics in late antique and early medieval history of Western Europe, particularly projects that examine Christianity, gender, ethnicity, or themes that make use of archaeological evidence.

Since work in the medieval field requires proficiency in Latin and at least two modern languages, and research on nineteenth-century archaeology and museums mandates proficiency in at least one modern language, students should begin this preparation as early as possible in their studies.