Research Fields
- Byzantine History
- Mediterranean History
- Environmental History
- Social History
- Digital Humanities
About
Dr. Lee Mordechai is a historian of the Eastern Roman Empire - also called the Byzantine Empire. Mordechai approaches his research through social history, environmental history and the digital humanities. He completed his doctoral studies at Princeton University (graduated in 2017) and went on to postdoctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) and at the Institute of Environmental Studies at Annapolis (Maryland, USA).
Selected Publications
Eisenberg, M. and Mordechai, L., “The Justinianic Plague, Global Pandemics: The Making of the Plague Concept”. American Historical Review 125(5): 1632-1667.
Mordechai, L., “Berytus and the Aftermath of the 551 Earthquake”. Late Antiquity – Studies in Source Criticism 17-18: 197-242.
Mordechai, L., Eisenberg, M., Newfield, T.P., Izdebski, A., Kay, J. and Poinar H. “The Justinianic Plague: An Inconsequential Pandemic?”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (51): 25546-25554.
Mordechai, L., Eisenberg, M. “Rejecting Catastrophe: the case of the Justinianic Plague”. Past and Present 244(1): 3-50.
Haldon, J.F., Mordechai, L., Newfield, T., Chase, A., Izdebski, A., Guzowski, P., Labuhn, I., Roberts, N., “History meets palaeoscience: Consilience and collaboration in studying past societal responses to environmental change”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(13): 3210-3218.
Selected Awards
COVID-19 Grants for History in the Public Interest – from Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University
SESYNC Pursuit, “Past Answers to Current Concerns: Historical Cases of Navigating Socio-Environmental Stress”
Fellow of the Israeli Academy of Sciences Junior Scholar Forum for the Social Sciences and Humanities
Princeton's Initiative for Comparative Antiquity support for FLAME
Peter R. Brown Prize for 2017
Teaching
Bachelor's degree courses
Epidemics and Zombies: the history of the end of the world in film
A Clash of Civilizations? Greeks and Persians in Antiquity
The Hellenistic Kingdoms
Disasters in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean
Introduction to Ancient Greek History
Introduction to Byzantine History
The Justinianic Plague between History and Science
Master's degree courses
New Directions in Premodern Environmental History