Staff profile

I'm a historian of the medieval and early modern Black Sea and Caucasus. My research focuses on the slave trade, Christianisation, and the formation of complex polities ('state formation').

I've had a somewhat peripatetic career. I gained my PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in 2019. After this, I taught at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois, and at City Colleges of Chicago. Following this, I held a grand total of four postdoctoral fellowships, all in Belgium- two at Ghent University (2019-2024), and two at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2024-2026). Two of these were funded by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (the Flemish Research Council). I joined Durham's History Department in 2026. 

My major publication is The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, 850-1240, published by Cambridge University Press in 2025 in their 'Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought' series. This book is the first monograph in a Western European language on the medieval North Caucasus, and specifically about the emergence and decline of its most powerful kingdom. It challenges the view that Christianisation in medieval kingdoms went along with state formation (i.e. the formalisation of institutions for resolving societal issues), since Alania Christianised extensively, but its rulers never instituted a state structure. This book won the Royal Historical Society First Book Prize and was nominated for the Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Prize. 

My other articles have been published or are in press in Past & Present, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, al-Masaq, Chronos, and Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii Severnogo Kavkaza. 

I teach courses on the history of the slave trade in the medieval Mediterranean, and on the medieval Black Sea and Caucasus. I'd be happy to supervise dissertations and theses related to the topics of enslavement in medieval Eurasia or the Mediterranean, state formation, and the pre-modern history of Eastern Europe or the Eastern Mediterranean more broadly.

In my spare time (such as it is...!) I enjoy martial arts and watching anime. I live with my wife and daughter, and consequently juggle being a historian with being, as my daughter puts it, "a gremlin" (otherwise known as her dada). 

• - Medieval history
• - History of the Black Sea and Caucasus
• - History of enslavement
• - State formation
• - Christianisation

• 2026: Winner, Royal Historical Society First Book Prize:
• 2026: Shortlisted, Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Prize:
• 2026: Research Fellow, Research Group 'Social History of Capitalism', Vrije Universiteit Brussel:
• 2025: Fellow of the Royal Historical Society:
• 2019: Convenor, Medieval Caucasus Network:

Authored book

• The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, 850–1240
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2025). The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, 850–1240. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009373463

Book review

• Ильичевское городище- аланская столица Магас? Новые подходы к старому вопросу
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2023). Ильичевское городище- аланская столица Магас? Новые подходы к старому вопросу. Материалы и исследования по археологии Северного Кавказа, 21, 257-273.

Chapter in book

• Bargaining with Byzantium: The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania and the Empire
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2025). Bargaining with Byzantium: The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania and the Empire. In J. Shepard & P. Frankopan (Eds.), Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres (pp. 657-671). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780191896361.003.0045
• The Mongol Conquest of Caucasia
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2022). The Mongol Conquest of Caucasia. In T. May & M. Hope (Eds.), The Mongol World (pp. 213-226). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315165172-17

Journal Article

• The Byzantine Empire as Segmentary Polity
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (in press). The Byzantine Empire as Segmentary Polity. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 80.
• The Late Mamlūk Transition of the 1380s: The View from the North Caucasus
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2023). The Late Mamlūk Transition of the 1380s: The View from the North Caucasus. Al-Masāq, 35(2), 143-163. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2022.2135850
• Treason and Sovereignty in the Medieval Caucasus
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2022). Treason and Sovereignty in the Medieval Caucasus. Chronos, 3, 50-63.
• The Alan capital *Magas: A preliminary identification of its location
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2022). The Alan capital *Magas: A preliminary identification of its location. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 85(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x22000453
• One Alania Or Two? The Question Of A ‘Dual State’ In The Seventh To Twelfth Century North Caucasus
  
  Latham-Sprinkle, J. (2018). One Alania Or Two? The Question Of A ‘Dual State’ In The Seventh To Twelfth Century North Caucasus. Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 24, 185-208.
• Sun-Gods and Soviets: Historicising a North Caucasian Nart Saga
  
  Latham, J. (2016). Sun-Gods and Soviets: Historicising a North Caucasian Nart Saga. Iran and the Caucasus, 20(2), 159-178. https://doi.org/10.1163/1573384x-20160201