Patrick Meehan Visiting Assistant Professor of History

Newcomb 312
540-458-4849
pmeehan@wlu.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Education

Ph.D. Harvard University, History, 2021
B.A. Brown University, History and Medieval Studies, 2013

Research

I am a historian of colonialism in a time and place not usually associated with it: the medieval Baltic. My research explores the colonization of the Baltic from the thirteenth through the mid-fifteenth centuries, primarily by a German crusading institution called the Teutonic Order. I approach this subject through a medieval Baltic version of a cultural myth commonly held by settler societies, which framed the conquest and settlement of Northeastern Europe as the divinely preordained transformation of a pagan "Wilderness" into a Christian "Promised Land"--similar to ideas of American "manifest destiny." Traces of this "Promised Wilderness" myth can be found in both narrative sources and archival records, which I put in conversation with one another in order to understand the relationship between the ideologies, practices, and real-life experiences of medieval colonialism. As a whole, my research brings together my interest in a number of fields, especially environmental history, postcolonial studies, and Indigenous history.

Teaching

My teaching spans European history from the Roman Republic through the Reformation, and particular interests I bring into the classroom include the history of crusading, religious and cultural history, and gender and sexuality, as well as my own ongoing work on the colonial Middle Ages.