Jesse Wayne Torgerson studies exchange and interaction between the societies and cultures of the Mediterranean basin throughout the Middle Ages with a focus on the East Roman Empire (Byzantium). Engage directly with his DIGITAL HISTORY LAB, take an elective COURSE, or make his day by showing up at DROP-IN HOURS.
Torgerson’s academic journey stems from a deep fascination with the complexities of human existence, culture and cultural mixings. Before work brought him to the strange foreign land of New England he lived in Southern & Northern California, Hong Kong, Minnesota, Taiwan, and the UK.
He received his BA from Biola University, and both his MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
His trans-disciplinary doctorate in Byzantine History includes multi-disciplinary specialization in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval West, as well as cross-disciplinary research in History of Art and Manuscript Studies.
Within Wesleyan’s inter-disciplinary College of Letters (COL) his teaching spans the Mediterranean, European, and MENA regions of the Middle Ages, and (drawing on experiences at the Torrey Honors Institute and the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) coheres in a student-centered pedagogy.
His book (free as an e-book!) offers a new perspective on ninth-century history, analyzing the Chronographia of George the Synkellos and Theophanes as a call to rebellion against the Roman emperor.
Recent articles (PDFs below) present:
— THEORY: new terminology for the work of history (here as a lecture!)
— METHODS: pedagogies for collaborating with students from the Constantinople as Palimpsest project (see our three-week bilingual AP World History unit)
— and RESEARCH: how data visualizations move the history of medieval mobility forward