Chris Halsted
Chris Halsted
Field & Specialties
Early Medieval History
Slavic and Scandinavian History
Global History
Education
PhD, History, University of Virginia, Expected May 2021
M.A., History, University of Virginia, 2017
B.A., History and Latin, Oberlin College, 2014
Biography
Chris Halsted is a PhD candidate working in early medieval Slavic history. In addition to his doctoral research, Chris has collaborated on the Medieval Elbe project translating and collecting medieval Latin sources, is the digital director of the First Millennium Network, and has published in the journals Viator and Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft.
Publications
- “Imperial Narratives, Complex Geographies: The Saxon Marches between Textuality and Materiality, 929-983,” Viator 49.3 (September 2018), 1-21.
- “‘They Ride on the Backs of Certain Beasts:’ The Night Rides, the Canon Episcopi, and Regino of Prüm’s Historical Method,” forthcoming, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
Current Research
Chris's dissertation investigates the sociopolitical history of early medieval Polabia (northeast Germany) within its global context, looking especially at patterns of trade and communication connecting the region to Iraq and Central Asia. His research in general focuses on questions of materiality and textuality, the study of the tenth century Saxon-Slavic border, and the intersections of witchcraft, gender, and ethnography in early medieval texts.
Awards & Honors
Best Student Paper, “Wounds Before Milk: Gender and Steppe Ethnography in Post-Carolingian Europe,” Medieval Academy of America, Berkeley CA, March 26-28, 2020 (Paper rescheduled due to COVID-19)
Gerda Henkel Stiftung PhD Scholarship, 2018-2020
Paul B. Barringer Family Jefferson Fellowship, 2015-2020
Robert J. Huskey Conference and Travel Fellowship, 2018
Dissecting Cultural Pluralism: Religion and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean Travel Grant, 2018
Comfort Starr Award for work in Political History, 2014