Professor of history receives grant for research in Spain

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EST

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Lycoming College assistant professor of history Dr. Cullen Chandler has been awarded a grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation (PCC) to support a six-week sabbatical in Barcelona, Spain, during which he will be researching medieval Spanish history and culture.

While there, Chandler will have the opportunity to study scholarly work not easily available in the U.S., including hand-produced books from the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries inaccessible outside of Barcelona.

“The crucible of the thriving later medieval principality known as Catalonia was the ninth-century Spanish March, which clung to the Pyrenees Mountains and the Mediterranean coast, separating regions of Christian rule in Europe from the Muslim controlled area of Spain,” says Chandler. “From this nucleus, settlement under Christian rule expanded into loosely controlled areas beginning in the late ninth century. Annexing a region requires more than merely military conquest, so my project examines the role of culture, including religion, in the integration of a conquered area in order to assess the mutual reinforcement of political and cultural institutions.”

The PCC was created by the Spanish Government''s Ministry of Culture and a distinguished group of Hispanists from U.S. academic institutions to promote the study of Spain in the U.S. in the humanities and social sciences.

Lycoming College News

Professor of history receives grant for research in Spain