In celebration of his four-year appointment as the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Bates College, historian Michael Jones delivers his inaugural lecture, Famine, Metahistory, and Interdisciplinarity, at 4:30 p.m. today in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. A reception follows in the Olin Arts lobby, and the public is invited to attend both events free of charge.

Throughout his distinguished career as a teacher and scholar, Jones has explored the early medieval period in Europe from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. As an undergraduate at the University of Texas, he studied history and economics. He earned a master’s degree from the University of Wales (Aberystwyth) and a doctorate in history from the University of Texas. He joined the Bates faculty in 1982.

Jones, a professor of history, “exemplifies the strength and gains of crossing the traditional boundaries of the disciplines,” says President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, who will make opening remarks and introduce Jones. Donald W. Harward, Bates president emeritus and trustee of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, also will speak.

Chair of the history department and a driving force in the development of the college’s Program in Classical and Medieval Studies, the scope of Jones’ course offerings range from medieval Europe and the Vikings to the Roman world and Anglo-Saxon England. He taught in the Colby, Bates and Bowdoin Off-Campus Study Program in London and has conducted Bates Fall Semesters Abroad in Spain and Croatia.

For Jones’ interdisciplinary archaeological field course in the Shetland Islands, students travel to the Brow Site, a dig directed by Gerald Bigelow, lecturer in environmental studies at Bates. At this remote site — and with field trips to mainland Scotland — they consult the literary record, material culture and evidence of climate change to better understand medieval and early modern Scotland.

Jones’ scholarly interests concern the economic, social military and environmental factors that derailed the Roman occupation of Britain and made way for the rise of the Anglo-Saxons. His book The End of Roman Britain (Cornell, 1996) is recognized as a radical rethinking of the standard accounts of this pivotal moment in European history. A widely published scholar, Jones’ essays have appeared in journals including Britannia, British Archeology, the Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, the Haskins Society Journal and Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History. He has contributed many chapters to books on medieval history.

Jones has received a Fulbright Fellowship, Social Science Research Council Fellowship and a Phillips Fellowship to support his research. He is the co-convener of the North Atlantic Studies Group, which considers — from the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences — the relationship between societies and the environment in the vast maritime region from the Canadian Arctic and New England to Scandinavia and the British Isles.

Interdisciplinary scholarship takes place at Bates in many ways. Individual faculty members may teach courses that extend beyond the conventional frontiers of their discipline, or they may team-teach a course with a colleague from another discipline, together covering new intellectual ground with students. Students may design their own interdisciplinary majors, working with a faculty adviser to develop a selection of courses that, taken as a whole and unified by a senior thesis project, create a unique interdisciplinary exploration of ideas.

Interdisciplinary work at Bates is conducted in eight programs, established in the last 15 years: African American studies, American cultural studies, Asian studies, biological chemistry, classical and medieval studies, environmental studies, neuroscience, and women and gender studies.

The college’s new educational requirements, approved by the faculty in 2006, underscore the centrality of interdisciplinary scholarship in a Bates education. Effective with the Class of 2011, every Bates student will complete two general education concentrations of at least four courses each, organized around a central theme or set of ideas and reaching across many disciplines.

Funded through a $1.2 million grant from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation of New York City, the Johnson Professorship recognizes the value of taking research and teaching wherever it leads — even if beyond the boundaries of established fields of study. Christian A. Johnson, a New York financier and industrialist who emigrated from Sweden, donated funds to incorporate the foundation in 1952. His devotion to education and nurturing the curiosity and intellectual development of young people continue to characterize the foundation, now headed by his daughter Julie Johnson Kidd.

Jones is the College’s second holder of the Johnson chair, succeeding Professor of Russian Jane Costlow, whose appointment concluded in 2006.

Bates College has recently appointed two faculty members to four-year term professorships, President Elaine Tuttle Hansen announced. Professor of History Michael Jones has been named the new Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Professor of Sociology Emily Kane has been named Whitehouse Professor.

An expert in the history of the North Atlantic region from late antiquity through the medieval period, Jones “exemplifies the strength and gains of crossing the traditional boundaries of disciplines,” Hansen said. Most recently, his work in the Shetland Islands extends his expertise into areas of archaeology and historical ecology and reflects his interest in bringing together faculty from many disciplines around topics involving Atlantic Studies. Jones has been at Bates since 1982. His courses span more than a dozen centuries of history and he was central to the founding of the Bates Program in Classical and Medieval Studies in 1988. Bates’ second Johnson Professor, Jones succeeds Jane Costlow, Professor of Russian.

Funded through a $1.2-million grant from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation of New York City, the Johnson Professorship recognizes the value of taking research and teaching wherever they lead – even if beyond the boundaries of established fields of study. Christian A. Johnson, a New York financier and industrialist who emigrated from Sweden, donated funds to incorporate the foundation in 1952. His devotion to education and nurturing the curiosity and intellectual development of young people continue to characterize the foundation, now headed by his daughter Julie Johnson Kidd.

The Whitehouse chair recognizes the characteristics that Bates has consistently valued, including dedication to educational and moral excellence and respect for human dignity. Kane’s work “evinces these aspects of scholarly endeavor as she seeks to examine issues of social inequality, the ideology of gender and family interactions,” said Hansen. Kane has been at Bates since 1996. Her courses range from examining race and class to teaching quantitative and qualitative research methods. Kane succeeds John Kelsey and Georgia Nigro, professors of psychology, to become the college’s third Whitehouse Professor.

The Whitehouse Professorship was established in 1985 with a gift to the endowment from David ’36 and Constance Whitehouse. Born and raised in Auburn, Whitehouse earned his M.B.A. from Harvard University after graduating from Bates in 1936. He served in leadership positions at the Container Corporation of America his entire career, retiring in 1980 as vice president. The Whitehouses passed away in the spring of 2000 and are survived by four adult children.