Program in Early Cultures

Jonathan P. Conant's research focuses on the inter-regional integration of the Mediterranean and the transition from antiquity to the middle ages. His book, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700 (Cambridge University Press, 2012), represents the first historical examination of the fate of Roman identity in the region of modern Tunisia and Algeria after the collapse there of Roman power in the fifth century down to the Islamic invasions of the late seventh and early eighth centuries. He has also written shorter pieces on saints' cults, rural literacy, documentary practice, and on the North African Jewish community. His current project, tentatively entitled The Carolingians and the Ends of Empire, ca. 795-840, seeks to reassess the Carolingians' understanding of the aims and responsibilities of empire in light of their wide-reaching external relations and of the long-term survival of Roman ideas in the medieval West.