About
I received my Phd degree in history at the University of California, San Diego under the supervision of Dr. Thomas W. Gallant. My dissertation is titled, T The Perennial Periphery: Insularity, Identity, and Politics in the Ionian Islands during the Long Nineteenth Century .
A multidisciplinary historian, researcher, teacher, and writer, I have interests in a variety of historical research including Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek history, the Ottoman Empire, Islamic art, the Mediterranean, and Canadian history. I have taught and had the opportunity to lecture at the University of California, San Diego, Making of the Modern World program. I have given lectures, talks and seminars on many historical topics for a variety of audiences, both academic and the general public.
I completed my undergraduate studies in classical studies and received my master of history at York University, Toronto. In 2007, I received a scholarship to study at the school of Modern Greek at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and, in 2011, I won a fellowship from the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation to conduct research in Athens and Corfu, Greece.
I obtained also received a post-graduate certificate in Museum Management and Curatorship and have worked for several cultural organizations, researching, developing, delivering, and evaluating museum exhibitions, programmes, and special events.
Please feel free to contact me, visit my Academia page, or click below.
Academic Research
My dissertation focuses on the period of unification of the Ionian Islands with the kingdom of Greece in 1864 and the consequences of islandness and boundary change on culture, politics, and governance of both the Ionian Islands and the Greek State. While specializing in 19th century Mediterranean and Greek history (Classical, Byzantine, and Modern), my research interests also include late Ottoman history, Islamic art, and Upper Canadian history. I apply a multidisciplinary approach to my historical research using geography as a means to reexamine broader socio-political events in the 19th-century Mediterranean region. My focus centres on the important historical role liminal spaces have played in the formation of nation-states, specifically Greece and Italy. I question the traditional historiographical approached towards the centre and periphery and argue for a reconceptualization of the relationship between the metropole and colony, the nation-state and borderland regions, and urban and rural.
My academic research also examines the intellectual, cultural, and political history of the Ionian Islands with a focus on archival sources such as newspapers, correspondences, parliamentary papers, and manuscripts. Using these sources, I trace the transmission of ideas across the Mediterranean world and focus on the mediating role of islands. I am interested in various interdisciplinary approaches to my research which includes borderland studies, island studies, postcolonial studies and more recently 'new'ecotones. These theoretical approaches are essential as they highlight Mediterranean islands as ideal sites for the creation of strong nationalist movements and radical political ideas that were important for the mainland state-building process.