Dr Alex Metcalfe

Alex Metcalfe

Senior Lecturer

Degree: B.A., M.A. (Exeter College, Oxford), B.A.(Leeds), Ph.D. (Leeds), FRHistS.

Associated research centres and groups: Medieval History

Current Teaching

(HIST262) Introduction to Islamic and Middle Eastern History

(HIST312) Islamic and Norman Italy (History Special Subject)

(HIST100) From the Medieval to the Modern (First Year Level Survey Course: Islam and Europe)

(HIST300) History Dissertation (10,000 words)

Previous undergraduate teaching includes courses on: The Medieval Islamic Underworld; History of the Crusades; Islamic Spain and Sicily; Arabic Grammar; Arab Travellers and Geographers

Research Interests

History: Islamic and Middle Eastern; the medieval Mediterranean
History: political; diplomatic; administrative; socio-religious; cultural; linguistic.
History: the Middle East; the Mediterranean basin; Muslim-Christian frontier zones
History: the rise and fall of major Muslim dynasties; state-formation and disintegration.
Islamic ideologies; political thought; rulership; administration; law; holy war and crusade; inter-faith relations; religious conversion and assimilation; cross-cultural contacts.
Language: Arabic; Greek; Latin; palaeography; charters; historical linguistics; onomastics.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

Islamic and Middle Eastern History
The Medieval Mediterranean

Students interested in undertaking postgraduate level research should contact me directly in the first instance.

Publications (authored, edited and forthcoming)

The Monreale Registers (with Professor Jeremy Johns, University of Oxford). New critical editions of Arabic, Greek and Latin royal charters with commentaries, translations and indices in multiple volumes (forthcoming from 2011).
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies (2010 forthcoming) editor. ISSN: 0806-198X. Click to preview online.
The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009). 352 pages. ISBN 978-0-7486-2007-4. P/back 978-0-7486-2008-1. Click to purchase.
'The Lands of Twelfth-Century Corleone', 'The Christians of Twelfth-Century Corleone' and 'Extracts from the Travels of Ibn Jubayr' in Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation, eds. K. Jansen, J. Drell and F. Andrews (Richmond: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), pp. 65-70 and 234-40. ISBN: 978-0812241648. Click to purchase.
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies (2009) editor. ISSN: 0806-198X. Click to read online.
'Sicilian Arabic' in The Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, eds K. Versteegh, M. Eid, A. Elgibali, M. Woidich and A. Zaborski, 4 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2009), iv, pp. 215-19. ISBN: 978-90-04-14476-7. Read in Lancaster e-prints.
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies (2008) edited with Joseph N. Bell and Lutz Edzard. ISSN: 0806-198X. Click to read online.
'Trusting the text as far as we can throw the scribe: further notes on reading a bilingual jaridat al-hudud from the royal diwan of Norman Sicily' in From Al-Andalus to Khurasan: Documents from the Medieval Muslim World, eds. P. M. Sijpesteijn, L. Sundelin, S. Torallas Tovar, A. Zomeno, [Islamic History and Civilization Series: Studies and Texts, vol. 66], (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 78-98. ISBN: 90-04-15567-8. Read in Lancaster e-prints. Click to purchase.
Under-Age Rule in the Medieval Islamic World (2007) editor. Themed volume of al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean with editor's introduction. Click to purchase.
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies (2007) edited with Joseph N. Bell. ISSN: 0806-198X. Click to read.
Review of Sheila S. Blair's Islamic Inscriptions (Edinburgh, 1998) in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32 (2005), 138-9. Click to read via JSTOR.
Review of Jeremy Johns's Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan (Cambridge, 2002) in English Historical Review 119 (2004), 118-120. Click here to read via EHR site.
Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic-Speakers and the End of Islam (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). 286 pages. ISBN 0-7007-1685-8. Read an extensive preview online. Click to purchase.
The Society of Norman Italy, edited with Graham A. Loud (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 381 pages. ISBN 9004125418. Click for limited preview.
'The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule' in The Society of Norman Italy (eds.) Graham A Loud and Alex Metcalfe (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 289-317. ISBN 9004125418. Read in Lancaster e-prints.
'De Saracenico in Latinum Transferri: Causes and Effects of Translation in the Fiscal Administration of Norman Sicily', Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 13 (2001), 43-86. ISSN: 0950-3110 0950-311. Read in Lancaster e-prints.
'The Mystery at Chúrchuro: Conspiracy or Incompetence in Twelfth-Century Sicily?' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62/2 (1999), 226-59 (with Jeremy Johns). ISSN: 0041-977X. Click to read via JSTOR.

Editorships, consultancy & professional associations

Editor of The Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies Paper version published by Edinburgh University Press (ISSN: 1748-3328). A monograph series is also attached to the journal.
Associate Editor of the journal Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean ISSN: 0950-3110 0950-3110 . Three issues per year, published on paper and online by Routledge.
Co-investigator of the major AHRC-funded project The Norman Edge: Identity and State-Formation on the Frontiers of Europe.
Consultant for the International Baccalaureate Organisation on European and Islamic History (syllabus and assessment) for the IB Diploma programme. National representative of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants. External examiner (Islamic History) at Edinburgh University. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Fellow of The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies; member of The Society for the Medieval Mediterranean (SMM), and The International Society of Arabic Papyrology (ISAP).