Associate Professor of History Dr. Korey Mass talks infested couches, home maintenance, and beer.

What is the most influential animal in history? Horse for war, dog for hunting, something else?

Setting aside man, because that’s just too easy, I’d probably go with domesticated cattle for positive influence, and the flea for negative.

What is one fun memory you have from your time at Oxford?

Not so much fun as funny, at least in hindsight. Early in our time there, my wife and I invited my doctoral adviser over for dinner. We were grad-school poor, and the cinder block walls and spartan furniture of our university housing gave it a definite jailhouse vibe. So we were pretty ecstatic, two days before the dinner, to discover a perfectly good sofa sticking out of a neighborhood dumpster. We rescued it under cover of darkness, and gave it pride of place in the apartment. When I came home the next day, there was a sign posted by the elevator: “Whoever took the sofa from the skip, return it immediately. It is infested and not to be reused.” We never discovered what, exactly, was infesting it; but needless to say we thought better of letting my adviser find out the hard way. So we wrestled the sofa back out and entertained in the again dreary prison cell. A coda, though: A year later, I was invited to take up a ministerial position in Cambridge, but was a bit nervous about asking my adviser’s approval to do so while still working on the degree. When I screwed up the nerve to ask, he didn’t hesitate before saying, “God, yes, by all means get out of that awful flat!”

What period of history besides your specialty is most interesting to you?

It’s got to be late antiquity, with all the changes and controversies attending the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

What foreign language would you most like to know?

My foreign languages were all grad school acquisitions for reading purposes and never got the spoken exercise they deserved, though I have fond memories of loafing around Spain with amusingly terrible phrasebook Spanish. But being able to speak French would be nice.

What is the most historically accurate work of fiction you’ve ever come across?

If I said James Ellroy’s “L.A. Quartet” I’d sound like a conspiracy theorist, so let’s say Robert Harris’ “Imperium.” I don’t know that it’s actually the most historically accurate novel I’ve read (i.e., don’t @ me, classics department), but it comes to mind as the most recent.

If you could teach any other subject, what would it be?

I previously taught for a decade in a theology faculty, so that would be the natural choice.

What are your hobbies?

Fixer-upper stuff. We own an 1840s home on a small acreage, so a fair amount of free time is devoted to maintenance, repair, and improvement of the property. Thankfully, it’s something I enjoy doing. I’m not good at it, but I enjoy doing it.

English or American food?

American, hands down – with the exception of the full English breakfast. And, of course, the beer.

Give a quote that sticks with you.

Nunc est bibendum. (Translation: “Now is the time to drink.”)