I was lucky enough to study with Peter Brown in college, and it was my reading of his 1973 book, The World of Late Antiquity, at the end of my Roman history course in my freshman year that convinced me I wanted to specialize in late antique and early medieval history. I ended up focusing on modern France, but I've loved studying the early Islamic era ever since. I have never had the opportunity to teach it: the closest I've come is in teaching modern world history to ninth graders, where we've cherry-picked early-modern empires and focused on the Ottomans and Safavids; these days, I teach Romance languages and English. Like some of the other class members, I'm not yet sure how I would rework a hypothetical syllabus, but I would love to have the opportunity to take another version of a seminar on Mediterranean Islam that I took in my final semester of college, almost forty years ago. The regional approach appeals to me because it centers people and places and leaves room for migrations and shifting political boundaries. I'd love to take another class on Islam in the Indian Ocean, but above all, I'm excited about the way that this class enables me to shift my focus, learn about the changes of scholarship in the past forty years, and to rekindle old interests.