Paul Stephenson

Stephenson_Sept_2015 (2)

Professor Paul Stephenson joined Lincoln in 2015 from Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, where he was appointed to the chair of Medieval History in 2011. He has also been Professor of Medieval History at Durham University and held the Rowe chair in Byzantine History at the University of Wisconsin and Dumbarton Oaks (Trustees for Harvard University) in the USA. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge, and an MSt from the University of Oxford, where he was also a research fellow of Keble College.

Stephenson is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has held research fellowships from the British Academy, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (in Germany), the Onassis Foundation (in Greece), and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. In spring 2012 he was visiting professor at the University of California, and in spring 2015, he spoke at several US universities on a lecture tour sponsored by the Onassis Foundation.

Stephenson’s published work has focused on the political and cultural history of the Roman Empire in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, generally called Byzantium. He is author and editor of eight books, including Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier (2000), The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-slayer (2003), and Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium (edited with Brooke Shilling, 2015), all with Cambridge University Press. His Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor (London, 2009; New York, 2010; new edn 2015), has been translated into several languages and appeared in a US History Book Club edition. Stephenson has recently completed, The Serpent Column: a Cultural Biography, which was the subject of his Onassis lecture tour and will be published by Oxford University Press. His next book will be volume eight of the Harvard University Press Profile History of the Ancient World.

Stephenson has spoken by invitation throughout Europe, including in Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest, Cologne, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Leiden, Mainz, Oslo, Stockholm, and Vienna. He has also lectured in Perth, Australia, and throughout the USA (including at the University of Chicago, UCLA, UC San Diego, Duke University, the University of Florida, Johns Hopkins University, the Ohio State University, and Penn). He has delivered named lectures and plenary lectures in Belgrade, Katowice, Rome and Uppsala.