Hannah Barker is an assistant professor of history at Arizona State University. Her research centers on connections between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea in the late medieval period, especially the trade in slaves which flourished during the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Her first book, dealing with the processes of shipping, marketing, and purchasing slaves and the Genoese, Mamluk, and Venetian merchants who conducted this trade, is That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500. It was awarded the Paul E. Lovejoy Prize by the Journal of Global Slavery, the ASU Institute for Humanities Research book prize, and honorable mentions for the Middle East Medievalists Book Prize and the Mediterranean Seminar's Wadjih F. al-Hamwi Prize for the best first book in Mediterranean studies. Barker is currently interested in early transmission of the Black Death from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean; life insurance for enslaved pregnant women in Genoa; how medieval Genoese notaries described slaves in legal acts; comparisons between northern and southern barbarians in Mamluk texts; and local slaving patterns in the Golden Horde and Caucasus regions.
Slavery and the slave trade; comparative history of slavery
Medieval ideas of race and ethnicity
Travel and cross-cultural encounters in the medieval Mediterranean
New approaches to the study of the second plague pandemic (the Black Death)
Legal, medical, social, and economic history
History of Italy; Genoa; Venice
History of Egypt and Syria; Mamluks
History of the Black Sea
Books
Articles and Book Chapters
Spring 2022 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 100 | Global History to 1500 |
HST 350 | Later Middle Ages |
HST 493 | Honors Thesis |
HST 494 | Special Topics |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Fall 2021 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 349 | Early Middle Ages |
HST 492 | Honors Directed Study |
HST 598 | Special Topics |
Spring 2021 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 493 | Honors Thesis |
HST 599 | Thesis |
Fall 2020 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 492 | Honors Directed Study |
Spring 2020 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 100 | Global History to 1500 |
HST 350 | Later Middle Ages |
HST 494 | Special Topics |
Fall 2019 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 349 | Early Middle Ages |
HST 494 | Special Topics |
HST 495 | Methods of Historical Inquiry |
Spring 2019 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 100 | Global History to 1500 |
HST 350 | Later Middle Ages |
Fall 2018 | |
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Course Number | Course Title |
HST 349 | Early Middle Ages |
2020-2021 ACLS Fellowship
2020-2021 Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Fellowship
2020-2021 Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society
2016 Ezio Cappadocia Prize, Society for Italian Historical Studies
2013-2014 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
American Historical Association
Medieval Academy of America
Middle East Studies Association
Society for Italian Historical Studies
Middle East Medievalists