Nathan Michalewicz is an Assistant Professor of History as Queen’s University of Charlotte. He specializes in and teaches the history of early modern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman Empire. He received his Ph.D. in history in 2020 from George Mason University. And he is currently revising his book manuscript, France’s Greatest Ally: The Ottoman Empire in French Foreign Policy during the Sixteenth Century, for publication. The Journal of the Western Society for French History and Sixteenth Century Studies has published his research. Nathan is also working on a digital monograph, Mapping French Diplomacy, that maps all the letters from French rulers to international correspondents from 1494 to 1715.
Nathan Michalewicz focuses his research on Christian-Muslim interactions and early modern diplomacy. He is interested in how France (and by extension, Europe) constructed its diplomatic geography. France’s Greatest Ally investigates how the French situated the Ottoman Empire into that geography in both theory and practice and how the French and Ottomans interacted with one another on a personal and state level. France’s Greatest Ally argues that the Ottoman Empire was a fundamental diplomatic partner for France. It remained so throughout the sixteenth century. And French king’s included it in every foreign policy initiative from the beginning of the alliance in the 1530s until 1610. Mapping French Diplomacy builds off this research expanding the realm of French foreign policy. It seeks to demonstrate the expansive nature of French foreign policy. It argues that France engaged in a truly multi-continental diplomacy far beyond the Northwestern Europe, which forms the nucleus of most interpretations of early modern European diplomacy.
Digital History is also a major component of Nathan’s research and teaching. His digital research focuses on spatial history and its presentation on the web. He is a full-stack web developer, working in JavaScript with tools such as Node.js, React.js, Deck.GL, and Leaflet.js. He also teaches digital public history, textual analysis, and databases for the humanities.
