Dr. William E. Watson, Chair

Faculty Center 21, extension 3491

Dr. William Watson (Professor of History) teaches courses on World Civilization, Medieval Studies, Middle East History and Politics, and Russian History. He studied under Alexander Riasanovsky and Edward Peters at the University of Pennsylvania, and his research interests include medieval cross-cultural topics (convergences in the history of the West, the Islamic world, and Russia) and twentieth-century international relations in the era of World War II and the Cold War.   He is the director of the Duffy's Cut Project.  He was Commonwealth Speaker for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, 2006-2007, and was the recipient of the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award at Immaculata for the year 2006-2007.
 
He is author of several books:
The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut (Praeger, 2006)www.greenwood.com/catalog/C8727.aspx
Tricolor and Crescent: France and the Islamic World (Praeger, 2003)www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7470.aspx
The Collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union (Greenwood, 1998)www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR0162.aspx
                       
Some of his published articles in medieval history have been reprinted by De Re Militari, the medieval military history society:
"Ibn al-Athir on the Rus: A Commentary and Translation," in Canadian-American Slavic Studies v. 35., no. 4 (Winter, 2001), pp. 423-438: www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/watson1.htm
"The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited," in Providence: Studies in Western Civilization v. 1, no. 2 (Fall, 1993), pp. 51-68: www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/watson2.htm
 

Ph.D., M.A., University of Pennsylvania; B.A., Eastern College