Hans Hummer

Hans Hummer

Hans Hummer was born in Oklahoma and raised in Kansas. He joined the history faculty at Wayne State as an assistant professor of medieval history in the fall of 1999 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. His teaching interests encompass antiquity, medieval Europe and the history of the pre-modern world. His efforts in the classroom have been recognized with the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2015, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teaching Award in 2005.

He has published articles on the barbarian peoples of late antiquity, and the political and social history of early medieval Europe. In 2007, the Society for French Historical Studies recognized his first book, Politics and Power in Early Medieval Europe: Alsace and the Frankish Realm 600-1000 with the David Pinkney Award, granted annually to the most distinguished book in French history. He published his second book, Visions of Kinship in Medieval Europe, in 2018 with Oxford University Press.

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

• Medieval Europe

• Family and kinship

• World history

Education

• Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles, 1997
• M.A., University of Florida, 1992
• B.S., Kansas State University, 1987

Awards and grants

• George William Cottrell, Jr. Member, Faculty of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, NJ, 2018-19

• Board of Governors' Distinguished Faculty Award, Wayne State University, 2019 and 2007

• President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Wayne State University, 2015 

• David Pinkney Book Award, Society for French Historical Studies, 2007

• Summer Fellow, Max Planck Institut für Geschichte, Göttingen, Germany, June-August, 2006

• Academy of Scholars Junior Faculty Award, Wayne State University, 2005

Selected publications

Books

• Visions of Kinship in Medieval Europe. Oxford Studies in Medieval History. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018
• Politics and Power in Early Medieval Europe: Alsace and the Frankish Realm, 600-1000, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, 65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Edited books

Visions of Medieval History in North America and Europe: Studies in Identity and Power. Ed. by Courtney M. Booker, Hans Hummer, and Dana M. Polanichka. Brepols: Turnhout, Belgium, 2022

Articles, chapters and review essays

• "Kinship and Inheritance in the Early Middle Ages," in Booker et al. ed., Visions of Medieval History (2022), pp. 151-167
• “The Production and Preservation of Documents in Francia: The Evidence of Cartularies,” in Warren Brown, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Adam Kosto, eds, Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 189-230

Courses taught by Hans Hummer

Fall Term 2024 (future)

• HIS3000 - The Historian's Craft
• HIS5360 - The Early Middle Ages: 300-1000
• HIS7360 - Readings in the Early Middle Ages: 300-1000

Winter Term 2024 (current)

• HIS5385 - History of Christianity to the Reformation
• HIS7385 - Readings in the History of Christianity to the Reformation
• HIS1000 - World Civilization to 1500

Fall Term 2023

• CLA3700 - The Golden Age of Rome
• CLA5700 - The Golden Age of Rome
• HIS3000 - The Historian's Craft
• HIS5340 - History of Ancient Rome
• HIS7340 - Readings in the History of Ancient Rome

Winter Term 2023

• HIS1000 - World Civilization to 1500
• HIS3250 - The Family in History
• HIS6000 - Studies in Comparative History

Fall Term 2022

• HIS1000 - World Civilization to 1500
• HIS5370 - The High Middle Ages: 1000-1300
• HIS7370 - Readings in the High Middle Ages: 1000-1300

Winter Term 2022

• HIS1000 - World Civilization to 1500