Kulikowski received his B.A. from Rutgers University, and his M.A., his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He also gained a Licentiate of Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in 1995. At the University of Toronto, Kulikowski was a student of Walter Goffart. He subsequently taught at Washington and Lee University, Smith College, and the University of Tennessee. Since 2009, Kulikowski has been Professor of History and Classics and Head of the History Department at Pennsylvania State University. Kulikowski's first book, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, was published in 2004. He next work, Rome's Gothic Wars, was published in 2006, and is an introductory textbook on the relations between Goths and the Roman Empire in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Bryan Ward-Perkins considered it a useful for students needing an introduction to the topic. Kulikowski is the author of numerous articles, which range from the dependability of the Notitia Dignitatum as a historical source or ethnic self-identifications to examination of the careers of various late Roman individuals. He is the editor of the forthcoming Landmark Ammianus Marcellinus.
Theories
Kulikowski belongs to the Toronto School of History, which is led by his former professor Walter Goffart. Kulikowski's views are closely in line with Goffart, who rejects the idea that Germanic peoples had any early history or that Germanic migrations had any impact on the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In Rome's Gothic Wars, Kulikowski argues against any supposed pre-Danubian history or identity of the Goths. He considers all pre-Danubian archaeological, linguistic and literary evidence on the Goths as completely dependent upon Getica by Jordanes, and therefore of little value. Instead, Kulikowski suggests that Gothic identity was invented by the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD for its own political gain and then imposed upon the diverse peoples of the Danube. Ward-Perkins disagrees with this theory, as he finds it difficult to believe that such manipulation of identity is possible. Kulikowski believes that the history of the Goths and other "barbarians" should be "understood entirely as a response to Roman imperialism". He labels previous works on the Goths by Peter Heather, Herwig Wolfram, :de:Volker Bierbrauer|Volker Bierbrauer as "extreme", "neo-romantic", "bizarre" and "outlandish", and believes they "lack theoretical rigour". Kulikowski also disagrees with Heather in the assumption that the invasion of the Huns was the primary cause of the migration period. He is highly critical of the ethnogenesis model of the Vienna School of History. Kulikowski charges that German nationalist and Nazi influences have permeated scholarship on the Goths up to the present day, particularly through the theories of Gustav Kossinna. He considers much of what is written about Goths to be "Germanist fantasy" derived from this legacy.
