Frank and Helen Lowry Professor of History
Cullen Chandler grew up in Texas, where he attended a small, liberal arts college quite similar to Lycoming College. He therefore has a deep appreciation for the mission and goals of Lycoming and finds its intellectual environment and community atmosphere stimulating. Training in graduate school took him to various other parts of the country, and even a study abroad experience, leading him to embrace the idea that we all have something to contribute.
Teaching
The current appointee of the Frank and Helen Lowry Professorship, Chandler is responsible for teaching various aspects of the early history of Western Civilization, which our current American culture inherits. All his courses focus on the period before c. 1500 and aim at understanding the place of Western Civilization in the wider world. Recently, his courses have been addressing the issues of information distribution and consumption by having students write for and monitor articles on Wikipedia. He also occasionally leads travel courses to Europe during the May Term.
Research
Chandler’s book on the Carolingian Spanish March focuses on the period of 778-814 when the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and his successors expanded its political reach south of the Pyrenees into Spain. Over the next decades, a conquered region became an important part of the empire. Indeed, most of Chandler’s publications examine the intersections of politics and culture. He is carrying that theme forward with his research project, “Early Medieval Food and Culture,” for which he won support during the spring semester 2019 from the Donald Bullough Fellowship in Mediaeval History from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.