Research

Your Master's thesis consists of an individual research project, which allows you to investigate a topic of your choice in any historical aspect connected to the ancient and medieval Mediterranean under the close supervision of our expert staff.

Education and research go hand in hand at Radboud University. All of the lecturers of Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean Worlds are members of the research institute Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH) that has a long tradition of research on the subject of European history in a variety of fields. Researchers are brought together in twelve thematic research groups. Research groups that are interesting and particularly relevant for Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean Worlds students are the groups The Ancient World and the Text Objective Research Network.

Research profiles of the Teaching Staff

Maaike van Berkel is professor of Medieval History. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of Muslim societies, with a particular interest in literacy, court culture and urban culture. Within the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean Worlds programme she teaches on transformations from late Antiquity to early Islam in the Eastern and Southern part of the Mediterranean.

Lien Foubert is associate professor in Ancient History. She specialises in Rome’s late republican and early imperial period. In the past, she has published on gender issues in the Julio-Claudian period and on the literary and non-literary representation of imperial women. Her current research focuses on the impact of feelings of crisis on elite narratives on the mobility or immobility of women.

Nathalie de Haan is associate professor in Ancient History. Trained as a classical archaeologist, her current research focuses on the role of Greek and Roman remains in the different narratives of modern Italy since the nineteenth century. She was Director of Classical Studies at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (2000 – 2006) and has taught many courses addressing the heritage of the Eternal City and the Bay of Naples ever since then, both in Rome and Nijmegen. 

Olivier Hekster is professor of Ancient History, researching the role of ideology in Roman Antiquity. Using a variety of media, he is especially interested in how Emperors represented themselves and how this was received. He teaches on ceremonies, rituals and traditions, as well as urban history in the Ancient Mediterranean.

Kati Ihnat is associate professor in Medieval History, with a research focus on religious culture throughout the early and high middle ages. An important focus reflected in her latest research projects is the cult of saints in medieval Iberia. Looking at everything from liturgical offices to miracles stories, theological treatises, prayers and art, she has been exploring the ways different saints were shaped as symbols of Christian orthodoxy and identity.

Panagiotis Iossif is a specially invited professor in Numismatics , specialising in Greek coins. He teaches an elective on the history of coins throughout ancient and medieval history.

Sven Meeder is associate professor in Medieval History specialising in the intellectual history of the eighth and ninth centuries in western Europe. He studies the spread and reception of learned texts, ideas and persons in the early Middle Ages.

Erika Manders is assistant professor in Ancient History. She specialised in modes of transmitting imperial ideology, mainly through coinage. Her current research focuses on religious representations of Roman emperors in the fourth century as well as on religious violence in the Greco-Roman world.

Bert Roest is assistant professor of Medieval History. His main research interests are the intellectual and religious life of the later Middle Ages in the context of mendicant scholarship and pastoral care. Furthermore, he has published numerous studies on Franciscan education, Mendicant observant movements, the Poor Clares and late medieval homiletics. He teaches on medieval urban history, medieval utopian projects, medieval intellectual culture and philosophy of history.

Rick Verhagen is professor of Law specialising in Roman law. He researches the private law dimension of international transactions and in particular financial transactions. He teaches the elective Roman Law.

Shari Boodts is assistant professor of medieval history, with a focus on digital manuscript studies. Her research is on the transmission and reception of late-antique texts in the Middle Ages. She has worked on medieval compilations, Bible commentaries, encyclopaedias and text collections. In her latest research project she uses digital methods and computational analysis to study early-christian sermon collections in the medieval religious tradition.

All the research groups can be found on the RICH website.