Historian Peter Frankopan Visiting Scaliger professor
Historian Peter Frankopan has been appointed Visiting Scaliger professor at Leiden University for 2017. The holder of this chair is affiliated both to the Scaliger Institute of Leiden University Libraries and to the Faculty of Humanities. Former holders of the chair include Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and François Déroche (Collège de France). Frankopan is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research.
Peter Frankopan
Dr. Peter Frankopan is a historian at the University of Oxford, where he is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. He works on the history of the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia Central Asia and beyond, and on relations between Christianity and Islam. He also specializes in medieval Greek literature. He is the author of The First Crusade: the call from the East (2012) which Times Literary Supplement called 'The most significant contribution to re-thinking the origins and causes of the First Crusade for a generation', and of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2016), an international bestseller, described by William Dalrymple as a ‘historical epic of dazzling range, ambition and achievement’.
Teaching, Research and Keynote speech
As Visiting Scaliger professor, Dr. Frankopan will stay at Leiden University in September and December 2017 and will be engaged with teaching and research. On 14 September Dr. Frankopan will deliver the keynote speech on Asia and the making of the Modern World in the Pieterskerk on the occasion of the grand opening of Leiden University’s Asian Library.
Scaliger Institute
The Scaliger Institute, founded in 2000, promotes teaching and research that uses the Special Collections held at Leiden University Libraries. Since its inception the Institute has received more than 270 fellows and has organized symposia, masterclasses, and special lecture series. The Institute takes its name from Josephus Justus Scaliger (1540-1609), the best known Leiden academic in the early years of the university. Scaliger was also a patron of the University Library.