Dr. Nicolas Trepanier is an Associate Professor of Middle East History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
Dr. Nicolas Trepanier's research interests include Middle East and medieval history, landscape phenomenology, historical archaeology, and the history of daily life and worldviews.
Biography
A native of Eastern Québec, Canada, Dr. Trépanier holds a Ph.D. (Middle Eastern Studies/History) from Harvard University. His first academic book, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A New Social History (University of Texas Press, 2014) explores the daily experiences of the ordinary folk through the various parts that food played in those lives –from agricultural production to religious fasting, and from commercial exchanges to meal schedules.
He has recently completed a second academic monograph, Experiencing the Landscapes of Medieval Anatolia (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), which borrows from the archaeological approach of landscape phenomenology to examine how people in medieval Anatolia connected with land on which they lived, and what these experiences can teach us about our own relationship with the territories we inhabit.
His other research interests include the use of history in videogames, the importance of medium in representations of the past, new avenues in interactions between academic research and artistic practices, and other questions related to the epistemology of history. He has been a member of the Department of History at the University of Mississippi since August 2009.
Publications
Selected Books:
Experiencing the Landscapes of Medieval Anatolia. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.
Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A New Social History. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press, 2014.
Selected Articles:
With Galina Tirnanic and Rachel Goshgarian, “Performing the premodern in The Color of Pomegranates, imagining and communicating the past” in Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 28 (2021), 287-318.
With Giancarlo Casale, "The Ottoman fleet at the battle of Mississippi: What videogames can teach us about history" in Rachel Goshgarian et al., eds. Crafting History: Essays on the Ottoman World and Beyond in Honor of Cemal Kafadar. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023, pp. 533-550.
“Harvesting semantics in late medieval Anatolia” in Patricia Blessing and Rachel Goshgarian, eds. Architecture and Landscape in Medieval Anatolia, 1100-1500. Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
“The giving divide: Food and social identity in medieval Anatolia” in Christine Isom-Verhaaren and Kent Schull (eds.). Living in the Ottoman Realm: Sultans, Subjects, and Elites. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016, 21-28.
“The Assassin’s perspective: Teaching history through videogames” in Perspectives on History, May 2014.
With Joshua Holdenried, “Dominance and the Aztec Empire: Representations in Age of Empires II and Medieval II: Total War” in Matthew W. Kapell and Andrew B. R. Elliott, eds. Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History. New York/London: Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 107-119.
“Starting without food: Fasting and the early Mevlevî order” in Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies XVI (2011), pp. 1-21.
“Culinary Culture in Fourteenth Century Anatolia”. In Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı, eds. Turkish Cuisine. Ankara: Ministry of Culture Publications, 2008, pp. 57-70.
“Iznik, the Orchards, and the Starving Enemy” Ali Erbaş, ed. Uluslararası İznik Sempozyumu, 5-7 Eylül 2005. İznik Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2006.
Courses Taught
- HST 150 Intro to Middle Eastern History
- HST 350 Muslim World- Origins to Middle Ages
- HST 351 Muslim World - Middle Ages to WWI
- HST 685 Readings - Middle East History
Education
B.A. History, McGill University (1999)
M.A. History, McGill University (2001)
Ph.D. History, Harvard University (2008)