Dr. Alasdair Grant

Foto: Photo by Elizabeth Muñoz Huber

Research Associate

Emmy Noether research group 'Social Contexts of Rebellion in the Early Islamic Period (SCORE)'

Anschrift

Universität Hamburg

Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften

Asien-Afrika-Institut

Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients

Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

20146 Hamburg

Büro

Hauptgebäude (ESA)

Raum: 133

Kontakt

Tel.: +49 40 42838-9760

E-Mail: alasdair.grant"AT"uni-hamburg.de

SCORE Homepage

www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/SCORE

Alasdair Grant, About

I studied Medieval History, Latin and Byzantine Studies at the universities of St Andrews, Oxford and Edinburgh. My research interests are broad but coalesce around the social history of the medieval Mediterranean and Caucasus regions, with particular focus on the themes of slavery and rebellion. My first book, Greek Captives and Mediterranean Slavery, 1260–1460, a substantially revised version of my PhD thesis, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2024.

My current project, in the context of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group ‘Social Contexts of Rebellion in the Early Islamic Period’ (SCORE, 2020–26), concerns contention in Armenia during its time as a province of the early Islamic Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE). I am also undertaking editorial and translation work – partially collaborative – on martyrological texts, which offer important but so far underused perspectives on early medieval Armenian society. This project will culminate in a monograph provisionally entitled Armenian Rebels in the Early Islamic Empire, 640–900. Together with SCORE group leader Dr Hannah-Lena Hagemann, I have co-edited the multi-author volume Between Rebels and Rulers in the Early Islamicate World: Power, Contention and Identity based on our first project conference and published by Edinburgh University Press in 2025.

I also retain a keen interest in the history and culture of my native Scotland. Before coming to Hamburg, I curated an exhibition at the University of Edinburgh on Scottish–Hellenic connections, ‘Edina/Athena: The Greek Revolution and the Athens of the North, 1821–2021’, funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and I continue to publish on this topic.

In parallel to SCORE, I continue to be involved in several other professional activities. I was co-principal investigator (with Dr Daphne Penna) of the collaborative Hamburg–Groningen research project ‘Loyalty Oaths in the Roman, Byzantine and Islamicate Legal Spheres’ (LORILS, 2023–24). Since 2024, I have been a Young Academy Fellow of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg. Since 2025, I have been dividing my time between Hamburg and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where I am acting assistant (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) to Professor Johannes Pahlitzsch, Department of Byzantine Studies. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK) in February 2025.

Alasdair Grant, Curriculum Vitae (CV)

2025–present: Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Department of Byzantine Studies, Johannes
Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

2024–present: Young Academy Fellow, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg

2021–present: Research Associate (Postdoc), ‘Social Contexts of Rebellion in the Early Islamic Period’, Universität Hamburg

2020–21: Curatorial (Postdoctoral) Fellow, ‘Edina/Athena: The Greek Revolution and the Athens of the North, 1821–2021’, The University of Edinburgh

2020 (spring): Junior Fellow, Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.

2017–18: Visiting Doctoral Researcher, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

2016–21: PhD, History, ‘Cross-Confessional Captivity in the Later Medieval Eastern Roman World, c.1280–1450’, The University of Edinburgh

2015–16: MSt, Distinction, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford

2011–15: MA (Hons.), First Class, Latin and Mediaeval History, University of St Andrews

List of Publications

Book:

2024. Greek Captives and Mediterranean Slavery, 1260–1460 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024) [Open Access].

As Editor:

2025. With H.-L. Hagemann (eds), Between Rebels and Rulers in the Early Islamicate World: Power, Contention and Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) [Open Access].

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

(Forthcoming). ‘The Greek Revolution, Thomas Gordon and the Aberdeen Committee’, Northern Scotland.

2025 With T. Greenwood, K. Hagan, L. Pecorini Goodall and L. Read, ‘A Neglected Armenian Source of the Late Umayyad Era: The Martyrdom of Vahan of Gołt‘n’, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 33, pp. 30–106.

2022. ‘Scotland’s “Vagabonding Greekes”, 1453–1688’, Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies 46, pp. 81–97 [Open Access].

2018. ‘The Mongol Invasions between Epistolography and Prophecy: The Case of the Letter “Ad flagellum”, c.1235/6–1338’, Traditio 73, pp. 117–77.

2016. ‘Pisan Perspectives: The Carmen in victoriam and Holy War, c.1000–1150’, The English Historical Review 131, pp. 983–1009.

Chapters in Multi-Author Volumes:

(Forthcoming). ‘Between Greek Revolution and Jamaican Rebellion: Thomas Gordon as Philhellene and Slave Owner«, in M. Sotiropoulos (ed.), Philhellenism and the Greek Revolution of 1821: Towards a Global History (Abingdon: Routledge).

(Forthcoming). ‘Captives, Slaves, and Latin Categories of Greekness’, in N. Gaul, M. Carr and Y. Stouraitis (eds), The Post-1204 Byzantine World: New Directions and Novel Approaches. Papers Read at the 51st Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Edinburgh, 13–15 April 2018 (Abingdon: Routledge).

(Forthcoming). ‘A Probably Spurious Crusading Letter of 1441 to John II of Cyprus (Vat. lat. 10688)’, in G. Christ (ed.), Commerce and Crusade: The Mamluk Empire and Cyprus in a Euro-Mediterranean Perspective (Leuven: Peeters).

2025. ‘Taxation, Rebellion and Withdrawal in Early ʿAbbāsid Armenia, 754–775 CE/136–158 AH’, in H.-L. Hagemann and A. C. Grant (eds), Between Rebels and Rulers in the Early Islamicate World: Power, Contention and Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) [Open Access].

2025. With H.-L. Hagemann, ‘Introduction: Approaching Rebellion in the Early Islamicate World’, in H.-L. Hagemann and A. C. Grant (eds), Between Rebels and Rulers in the Early Islamicate World: Power, Contention and Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) [Open Access].

2024. ‘Thomas Gordon and the Ghost of Tripolitsa: A Study in Private Conflict and Public Relations’, in R. Beaton and N. Gaul (eds), The Greek Revolution of 1821: European Contexts, Scottish Connections (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 250–74.

2023. ‘Gottlose Korsaren. Erzählungen aus der spätmittelalterlichen Ägäis’, in R. Hank, H. Leppin and M. Plumpe (eds), »Alle, die mit uns auf Kaperfahrt fahren«: Piratengeschichten auf den Meeren der Welt (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag), pp. 49–72.

2022. With M. Carr, ‘The Catalan Company as a military diasporic group in medieval Greece and Asia Minor’, in G. Christ, P. Sänger and M. Carr (eds), Military Diasporas: Building of Empire in the Middle East and Europe (550 BCE–1500 CE) (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 176–93.

2019. ‘Byzantium’s ashes and the bones of St Nicholas: Two translations as turning points, 1087–1100’, in M. Kinloch and A. MacFarlane (eds), Trends and Turning-Points: Constructing the Late Antique and Byzantine World (Leiden: Brill), pp. 247–65.

Reviews and Shorter Publications:

(Forthcoming Research note). ‘Edward Masson: A Scot in the Greek Revolutionary Navy, 1827’, International Journal of Scottish Studies.

(Forthcoming Essay). ‘Vergessene Unfreiheit: Mittelalterliche Sklaverei als transatlantische Geschichte’, in M. Latif (ed.), Freiheit (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder).

2023. Review: S. B. Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian Literary Culture: Texts, Contexts, Dynamics (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), in Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 34, pp. 193–4.

2023. Review: W. St Clair, Who Saved the Parthenon? A New History of the Acropolis before, during and after the Greek Revolution (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers), in Historische Zeitschrift 316, pp. 685–6.

2021. Article: ‘The Scottish Ladies Society for Promoting Education in Greece: Philanthropy and Empire in the “Athens of the North”’, History Scotland (Nov./Dec. 2021), pp. 42–4.

2021. Exhibition Catalogue: With N. Gaul, I. G. Brown and R. Beaton, Edina/Athena: The Greek Revolution and the Athens of the North, 1821–2021 (Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh) [Open Access].

2021. CD Booklet: ‘Ronald Center and His String Quartets’, Ronald Center: Chamber and Instrumental Music, Volume Two: Complete String Quartets [TOCC 0533] (London: Toccata Classics).

2021. Review: T. Sinclair, Eastern Trade and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages: Pegolotti’s Ayas–Tabriz Itinerary and its Commercial Context (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2019), in Al-Masāq 33, pp. 89–92.

2021. Review: D. Valérian, Ports et réseaux d’échanges dans le Maghreb médiéval (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2019), in Al-Masāq 33, pp. 352–4.

2020. Review: H. Barker, That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), in Al-Masāq 32, pp. 357–60.

2019. Review: G. Scalia (ed.), A. Bartola (comm.) and M. Guardo (trans.), Enrico Pisano: Liber Maiorichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus (Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2017), in The English Historical Review 134, pp. 957–9.