Joseph Frechette | University of Maryland (original) (raw)
I received my Ph.D. in ancient history in 2017 from the University of Maryland, College Park. My fields of concentration were late antiquity, classical historiography, and imperialism.
Supervisors: Arthur Eckstein and Kenneth Holum
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Book Reviews by Joseph Frechette
H-Net
This handy study has much to offer to students of imperialism and imperial history as well as int... more This handy study has much to offer to students of imperialism and imperial history as well as interested lay readers. Chaniotis has produced a wide-ranging and refreshing synthesis of events from 334 BCE down to 138 CE that is self-consciously aimed at a nonspecialist audience. As such, it is
H-Net, 2019
Students of the military, political, and social history of late antiquity and early Byzantium wil... more Students of the military, political, and social history of late antiquity and early Byzantium will all undoubtedly welcome the latest by John Haldon. An expansion of the four Carl Newell Jackson lectures he gave at Harvard in 2014, this book takes on the obvious, but problematic, question of how exactly the eastern Roman Empire weathered the crises brought on by Arab expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries. Traditional military historians may be disappointed by his eschewing operational military history for broader structural explanations. Likewise, his erudite style and approach, with talk of a "cognitive anthropological analysis of texts and cultural production" and the "ideational framework" of the empire's political theology, may be disconcerting to lay readers and less advanced undergraduates (pp. 15, 122). Readers who persevere, however, will be repaid.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2018
Howe, Müller, and Stoneman’s Ancient Historiography on War and Empire is the product of a 2013 co... more Howe, Müller, and Stoneman’s Ancient Historiography on War and Empire is the product of a 2013 conference on Greek history and historiography and includes chapters that form sections devoted to Classical Greece and Achaemenid Persia, Macedon, Alexander and the Diadochoi, and the Second Sophistic. Presumably these divisions indicate the various conference panels from which the papers had their genesis. As with all edited volumes of such breadth, the individual contributions present a wide variety of specific topics and approaches. The golden thread theoretically running through all of them is that they all variously explore the ways in which the ancient authors’ contemporary contexts and the perceived needs and desires of their audiences affected their presentation of history. This was serious business. As Howe notes in his foreword, the ancient historians’ tendencies towards either propaganda or didacticism were impelled by “war and its uncompromising consequences… as they sought to shape current decisions by creating and curating history” (xi). Since, however, the authors and topics under consideration span nearly a millennium the papers all have particular foci and approaches.
Conference Papers by Joseph Frechette
2009 meeting of the Society of Military History, 2009
2009 Conference of Army Historians, 2009
2010 Cambridge University New Research in the History of Warfare Graduate Conference, 2010
U.S. Naval Academy McMullen Naval History Symposium, 2019
2013 meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, 2013
2012 meeting of the Society of Military History, 2012
2020 meeting of the American Historical Association., 2020
H-Net
This handy study has much to offer to students of imperialism and imperial history as well as int... more This handy study has much to offer to students of imperialism and imperial history as well as interested lay readers. Chaniotis has produced a wide-ranging and refreshing synthesis of events from 334 BCE down to 138 CE that is self-consciously aimed at a nonspecialist audience. As such, it is
H-Net, 2019
Students of the military, political, and social history of late antiquity and early Byzantium wil... more Students of the military, political, and social history of late antiquity and early Byzantium will all undoubtedly welcome the latest by John Haldon. An expansion of the four Carl Newell Jackson lectures he gave at Harvard in 2014, this book takes on the obvious, but problematic, question of how exactly the eastern Roman Empire weathered the crises brought on by Arab expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries. Traditional military historians may be disappointed by his eschewing operational military history for broader structural explanations. Likewise, his erudite style and approach, with talk of a "cognitive anthropological analysis of texts and cultural production" and the "ideational framework" of the empire's political theology, may be disconcerting to lay readers and less advanced undergraduates (pp. 15, 122). Readers who persevere, however, will be repaid.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2018
Howe, Müller, and Stoneman’s Ancient Historiography on War and Empire is the product of a 2013 co... more Howe, Müller, and Stoneman’s Ancient Historiography on War and Empire is the product of a 2013 conference on Greek history and historiography and includes chapters that form sections devoted to Classical Greece and Achaemenid Persia, Macedon, Alexander and the Diadochoi, and the Second Sophistic. Presumably these divisions indicate the various conference panels from which the papers had their genesis. As with all edited volumes of such breadth, the individual contributions present a wide variety of specific topics and approaches. The golden thread theoretically running through all of them is that they all variously explore the ways in which the ancient authors’ contemporary contexts and the perceived needs and desires of their audiences affected their presentation of history. This was serious business. As Howe notes in his foreword, the ancient historians’ tendencies towards either propaganda or didacticism were impelled by “war and its uncompromising consequences… as they sought to shape current decisions by creating and curating history” (xi). Since, however, the authors and topics under consideration span nearly a millennium the papers all have particular foci and approaches.
2009 meeting of the Society of Military History, 2009
2009 Conference of Army Historians, 2009
2010 Cambridge University New Research in the History of Warfare Graduate Conference, 2010
U.S. Naval Academy McMullen Naval History Symposium, 2019
2013 meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, 2013
2012 meeting of the Society of Military History, 2012
2020 meeting of the American Historical Association., 2020
AHA 2015 – New York City Panel Title: Inside the Minds of Ancient Writers: Investigating Polybiu... more AHA 2015 – New York City
Panel Title: Inside the Minds of Ancient Writers: Investigating Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, and Procopius
Historical Period: 2nd century BCE – 7th century CE
Geographical Region: Ancient Near East, Mediterranean
Recording Permission: Granted
Chair
Rachael Goldman
Adelphi University
Organizer
Nikolaus Overtoom
Ancient History Doctoral Student
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA
Email: nlovertoom972@yahoo.com
Encyclopedia of Military Science (Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.), editor, G. Kurt Piehler , 2013
The implicit assumption in many recent treatments of the sixth century historian Procopius of Cae... more The implicit assumption in many recent treatments of the sixth century
historian Procopius of Caesarea and his history of the wars of the emperor Justinian is that the “classicizing” elements contained in the Wars are a product of mimesis that Procopius deployed for literary or political purposes. These approaches lead to the conclusion that the Wars are disconnected from the realities of the mid sixth century.
This dissertation suggests that we may gain a better understanding not
only of this important historian and his most substantial work, but also the regime he served and criticized, by suspending our disbelief and taking the Wars on its own terms. That is, as a work of analytical history whose author expected would be useful to its readers in the conduct of military and political affairs. To this end it examines Procopius’ career, the nature and relative dates of his works, the historiographic context in which he operated, the nature of his audience, some of the recurrent issues faced by Roman commanders as described in the Wars and
their practical applicability to a contemporary military audience, points of contact between Procopius and the didactic military literature of the period, the inapplicability of discussing Procopius as a critic of a “totalitarian” regime, and the Wars’ portrait, instead, of an imperial regime limited by both external and internal constraints.