John TOLAN

EDUCATION

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches, 2001).   Post-doctoral degree required for obtaining the rank of professeur (full professor).  Advisor: Jean-Claude Schmitt; committee: Pierre Guichard, Dominique Iogna-Prat, Philippe Sénac, Pierre Toubert, Gilles Veinstein.

University of Chicago (PhD in History, 1990). Studied History and Medieval Studies; focused on Medieval Intellec­tual History, on Spanish History, and on cultural and religious interaction between medieval Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  Dissertation:  “To Slay You with Your Own Sword”: Petrus Alfonsi and his Place in the History of Medieval Thought.  Advisor: Robert Bartlett.

University of Chicago (MA in History, 1986).  MA thesis: “Spes nostra Christus est: Christian Views of Islam in eighth- and ninth-century Spain.”  Advisor: Bernard McGinn.

Yale University (BA cum laude in Classical Civiliza­tion, 1981).  Studied the language, history, and religion of ancient Greece and Rome.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Université de Nantes, Département d'Histoire, Professeur d’histoire médiévale (September, 2002-present); Maître de Conférences en histoire médiévale (September, 1996-August, 2002).

Institut d’Etudes Avancées de Nantes (October 2020-June 2023), Member of the Institute.  Acting director (2022).

Institut du Pluralisme Religieux et de l’Athéisme, Nantes.  Director, with Dominique Avon, of a financed by the Pays de la Loire region through its Connect Talent program (2015-2019). (see www.ipra.eu)

Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Ange Guépin, Nantes, Director (2008-2011).  Director of a major interdisciplinary research center in the social sciences (see https://msh-ange-guepin.univ-nantes.fr/). --Associate director (2006-2008)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro, History Department, Assistant Professor (August, 1994-June, 1996). 

Stanford University, History Department, Lecturer (September, 1992-June, 1994). 

PUBLICATIONS

Books

England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023 (forthcoming).

Nouvelle histoire de l’islam. Paris: Tallandier, 2022.

Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); French translation, Mahomet l’Européen (Paris: Albin Michel, 2018); Spanish translation, Mahoma el Europeo: una historia de las representaciones del profeta del islam en occidente (Cáceres: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Extremadura, 2021).

St. Francis and the Sultan: The Curious History of a Christian-Muslim Encounter.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [French edition: Le Saint chez le Sultan : la rencontre de François d’Assise et de l'islam.  Huit siècles d'interprétations (Paris : Seuil, 2007).  Italian translation : Il santo dal sultano: L'incontro di Francesco d'Assisi e l'islam (Rome: Laterza, 2009)].

L’Europe latine et le monde arabe au Moyen Age : Cultures en conflit et en convergence. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009.

Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages.  Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.

Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. [French translation: Les Sarrasins: l’Islam dans l’imagination européenne au moyen âge.  Paris: Aubier (collection historique), 2003; reedition Paris: Flammarion poche, 2006.] [Spanish translation: Los Sarracenos: el Islam en el imaginario europeo en la Edad Media.  Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2007.]

Histoire médiévale: Les Relations entre les pays d'Islam et le monde latin du milieu du X^ème siècle au milieu du XIII^ème siècle. Paris: Bréal (Série CAPES-Agrégation), 2000.

Petrus Alfonsi and his Medieval Readers.  Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993.