Dr. Nicolas Trépanier is an Associate Professor of Middle East History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
Dr. Nicolas Trépanier's research interests include Middle East and medieval history, landscape phenomenology, historical archaeology, and the history of daily life and worldviews. His other research interests include the use of history in video games, 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.
Biography
A native of Eastern Québec, Canada, Dr. Trépanier earned his BA in Political Science and Middle East Studies in 1999 from McGill University and his MA in Islamic Studies in 2001 from McGill. He holds a PhD in History and Middle East Studies in 2008 from Harvard University. He had a ARIT/NEH Post-doctoral Fellowship from the American Research Institute in Turkey from 2008-09. He has been a member of the Department of History at the University of Mississippi since August 2009.
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.
Publications
A New Social History
From the publisher:
Investigating daily life in Anatolia during the fourteenth century, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia draws on a creative array of sources, including hagiographies, archaeological evidence, Sufi poetry, and endowment deeds, to present an accessible portrait of a severely under-documented period. Grounded in the many ways food enters the human experience, Nicolas Trépanier’s comprehensive study delves into the Anatolian preparation of meals and the social interactions that mealtime entails—from a villager’s family supper to an elaborately arranged banquet—as well as the production activities of peasants and gardeners; the marketplace exchanges of food between commoners, merchants, and political rulers; and the religious landscape that unfolded around food-related beliefs and practices.
Selected Book(s):
Experiencing the Landscapes of Medieval Anatolia. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.
Selected Article(s):
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 video games 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 video games" 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
- HIST 1500 Intro to Middle Eastern History
- HIST 3500 Muslim World - Origins to Middle Ages
- HST 3510 Muslim World - Middle Ages to WWI
- HST 6850 Readings - Middle East History
Education
Ph.D. History, Harvard University (2008)
B.A. History, McGill University (1999)
M.A. History, McGill University (2001)