Ph.D., 1970, Yale University 
B.A., 1965, University of Wisconsin-Madison 
 

Professor (History) 
 

"Economic Development and Aquatic Ecosystems in Medieval Europe," American Historical Review , 101 (1996), 631-669.

Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997

“Medieval Fishing” in Paolo Squatriti, ed., Working with Water in Medieval Europe: Technology and Resource Use, pp. 331-393. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

“Frontier Foods for Late Medieval Consumers: Culture, Economy, Ecology,” Environment and History, 7 (2001), 131-167.

“A Longer View: Is Industrial Metabolism Really the Problem?” in M. Fischer-Kowalski, E. Rosa, R.P. Sieferle, and B. Smetschka, eds., Nature, Society and History: Long Term Dynamics of Social Metabolism, eds., a special issue of Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences, 14:2 (2001), 143-155.

“Carp, Cods, Connections: New Fisheries in the Medieval European Economy and Environment” in Mary J. Henninger-Voss, ed., Animals in Human Histories: The Mirror of Nature and Culture, 3-55. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2002.

"Ecology" in William C. Jordan, ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Supplement 1, 169-174 New York: American Council of Learned Societies / Scribners, 2004.

"Chapter 3: Medieval Christendom in God’s Creation: Environmental Continuities, Coevolutions, and Changes,” in Tamara Whited et al., Northern Europe: An Environmental History, 45-72. Santa Barbara - Denver - Oxford: ABC-Clio, 2005.

"Footprint Metaphor and Metabolic Realities: Environmental Impacts of Medieval European Cities," in Paolo Squatriti, ed., Natures Past: The Environment and Human History, 288-325. The Comparative Studies in Society and History book series. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.

"Homo et Natura, Homo in Natura: Ecological Perspectives on the European Middle Ages," in Barbara A. Hanawalt and Lisa J. Kiser, eds., Engaging with Nature. Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 11-38. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

"Medieval Europeans and their Aquatic Ecosystems" in Bernd Herrmann, ed. Beiträge zum Göttinger Umwelthistorischen Kolloquium 2007-2008, 45-64. Graduiertenkolleg Interdisziplinäre Umweltgeschichte. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2008 [free access online through http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de]

2001 “Aquaculture and the Engineering of Landscapes in Medieval Europe” in a session on “Long Term Landscape History in Europe” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Durham, N.C., March-April 2001

“Deep History in Some Marine Coastal Environments”, an invited paper in a special session on “Marine Environmental History: Shifting Baselines and Conservation Targets” at the Second Symposium on Marine Conservation Biology sponsored by the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, San Francisco State University, June 2001.

2002 “Medieval Europeans and their Aquatic Ecosystems,” an invited contribution to a symposium “Historical Perspectives on Natural History and Ecology” at the 83d Annual Meeting of the Western Society of Naturalists, Monterey, California, 2002 November 8-11.

2003 "The 'Ecological Footprint' of Medieval European Cities", an invited contribution to an international conference on 'Natures Past: Comparative Perspectives on Environmental Change" sponsored by Comparative Studies in Society and History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003 October 3-4.

2004 "Aquatic Resource Use in Medieval Europe", an invited contribution to an international workshop "Ecological History of the Wadden Sea: 2000 years of human-induced change in a unique coastal ecosystem" at the Wadden Sea Field Research Station, List, Sylt, of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute of Polar and Marine Research, Universität Kiel, 2004 January 22-25.

"Homo et Natura, Homo in Natura: Ecological Perspectives on the European Middle Ages," an invited lecture to open a public series on "Nature in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance" at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State University, 2004 October 15.

2005 "Teaching preindustrial environmental history", panelist in Round Table "Teaching Environmental History" at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, University of Western Ontario, 2005 May 31.

"Strekfusz: a competitor to imported stockfish in late medieval eastern Europe", a paper for the 13th Fish Remains Working Group Meeting, International Council for Archaeozoology, Basel, Switzerland, 2005 October 5-9.

"Aquatic Commons in worlds of change: Medieval European experiences and present-day management issues" an invited lecture at the Zentrum für Umweltgeschichte of the Fakultät für Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Fortbildung, Universität Klagenfurt in Wien, Vienna, 2005 October 17.

2007 "Medieval European Fisheries: Archaeological and historical evidence for some indicator species," an invited lecture at Institut Maurice-Lamontagne / Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Mont Joli, Quebec, March 30.

2008 "Puzzling out medieval herring from a European perspective", a paper for the 37th Annual University of British Columbia Medieval Workshop, Vancouver, 2008 April 2-3.

"Nature and Culture, Culture and Nature, in the Middle Ages and in Medieval Studies" an invited keynote lecture at the International Medieval Congress 2008 at the University of Leeds, 2008 July 7-10.

History 2220 “Medieval and Early Modern Europe”
History 3212 "Society in Preindustrial Europe"
History 3225 “At the Fringes of the Medieval West”
History 3280 "Europeans and the Natural World to 1800"
History 4224 “Human Economy and Natural Environment in Preindustrial Europe”
History 5350 “Environmental History of Medieval and Early Modern Europe”

Environmental, economic, and social history of medieval and early modern Europe, notably involving natural resource use (fisheries), human ecology, peasants, frontiers, and intercultural relations.

Recipient of 1997 Alice Hamilton Prize awarded by the American Society for Environmental History for the best article in the field of environmental history published during 1995 or 1996 (“Economic Development and Aquatic Ecosystems in Medieval Europe”)

2005 sabbatical leave fellowship from York University for “Fisheries in Medieval European Environmental History”