Degrees: PHD, 1996, Harvard Univ; BA, 1988, Univ Cambridge

Bio:

Simon Doubleday received his B.A. in History (First Class Hons.) from Cambridge University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1996. His principal area of research is medieval Spanish history; he is executive editor of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal, published twice a year by Taylor and Francis.

Prof. Doubleday’s current research interests encompass theoretical questions concerning ethical and political engagement in historical writing, and on experimental forms of historical narrative. He has edited two volumes of essays: Border Interrogations: Questioning the Spanish Frontiers, ed. with Benita Sampedro (Berghahn Books, 2008), and In the Light of Medieval Spain. Islam, the West, and the Relevance of History, ed. with David Coleman (Palgrave, 2008); a new collection, Why the Middle Ages Matter, ed. with Celia Chazelle, Amy Remensnyder and Felice Lifshitz, will be published by Routledge in 2011. He is author of The Lara Family: Crown and Nobility in Medieval Spain (Harvard University Press, 2001), for which he was awarded the university's Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement, and which appeared in a revised Spanish translation, Los Lara: Nobleza y monarquía en la España Medieval (Madrid, 2004). He contributed the entry for "Castile" in the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Robert Bjork (Oxford University Press, 2008). A former Visiting Scholar at the NYU Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, he is also the book review editor of the American Association of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS), and a member of the Premio del Rey Prize Committee of the American Historical Association.

Since arriving at Hofstra in 1998, Prof. Doubleday has taught a wide range of courses in medieval and Renaissance history, as well as classes tracing the historical roots of modern social issues. He is the recipient of a recent Teaching Development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), for a project addressing relations between North Africa and Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He frequently participates in the Hofstra study abroad program in Santiago de Compostela, offering courses from medieval Iberian history to Spanish Civil War and historical memory.

In addition to his scholarly work, he has contributed to the Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music. In line with his commitment to understanding the significance of history – both recent and distant -- for approaching social justice, human rights issues, and inter-cultural relations in the contemporary world, he is a founding member of Long Island Teachers for Human Rights (LITHR), and organizer of a recent Day for Haiti/Night for Haiti at Hofstra University.