Education

Duke University	Ph.D. in Religion, 2002 Dissertation:  "Disciplining the Monastic Body:  Asceticism,  Ideology, and Gender in the Egyptian Monastery of Shenoute of Atripe" Major area:  Early Christian History Minor areas:  New Testament, Women's Studies Graduate Certificates in Women's Studies & Medieval Studies M.A. in Religion, 1998
Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley)	Coursework, 1994-1995 Biblical studies, Greek, & Latin
Brown University	A.B. in Religious Studies, 1993 magna cum laude and degree with honors

 

Fellowships, Honors, and Grants

National Honors & Competitions	American Academy of Religion, Individual Research Grant, 2008-2009 Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University, Introduction to the Humanities Program, 2004-2007 (research support funded by the Mellon Foundation) Research Visitor, The Catholic University of America Center for the Study of Early Christianity, March 2006 Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, UCLA, 2004 (declined) Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Duke University, 2004 (declined) Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, 2002-2004 (see below) Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship, 2000-2001
Univ. of the Pacific	Eberhardt Research Fellowship, 2007 Council for Academic and Professional Development Grant, 2008 Writing in the Disciplines Teaching Grant (Departmental grant; participant in grant & minor contributor to proposal), 2008
Ithaca College	Emerson Humanities Fund Grant (to support a class trip to New York City museums), 2002 Office of the Provost Grant (to support class trips to New York City museums), 2002, 2004 Office of the Provost Grant (international travel support), 2003
Duke University	Orval S. Wintermute Graduate Instructorship, Duke University, 2000-2001 (declined) Anne Firor Scott Research Award, Duke University, 1999-2000 Ernestine Friedl Research Award, Duke University, 1999-2000 (honorary) Aleane Webb Dissertation Research Fellowship, Duke University, 1999-2000 Graduate School Dissertation Travel Award (Egypt), Duke University, 1999-2000 Preparing Future Faculty Fellow, Duke University, 1999-2000 Women's Studies Scholars Society, Duke University, 1997- 2002 Graduate Fellowship, Duke University, 1995-1999
Brown University	Phi Beta Kappa, Brown University, 1993 Bishop McVickar Prize for Thesis in Religious Studies, Brown University, 1993 Hypatia Mathematics Prize, Brown University, 1989

 

Research & Publications

Book	Monastic Bodies:  Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe, Divinations:  Rereading Late Ancient Religion Series (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
Articles Published	"Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy?  Homoeroticism, Children, and the Making of Monks," forthcoming in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77 (2009) "The Erotic Asceticism of the Passion of Andrew:  the Apocryphal Acts of Andrew, the Greek Novel, and Platonic Philosophy, in the New Testament Apocrypha volume of the Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature Series, ed. Amy-Jill Levine (Sheffield, UK:  Sheffield University Press; New York:  Continuum) "Prophecy and Porneia in Shenoute's Letters," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 65 (2006): 81-97 "Shenoute of Atripe on the Resurrection," ARC 33 (2005): 123–37 "'A Suitable Abode for Christ':  The Church Building as Symbol of Ascetic Renunciation in Early Monasticism," Church History 73:3 (2004) "Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Silver Screen:  Modern Anxieties about Race, Ethnicity, and Religion," Journal of Religion and Film 7:2 (2003) "Purity and Pollution in the Asceticism of Shenute of Atripe," in vol. 35 of Studia Patristica, eds. M. F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold (Leuven:  Peeters, 2001), 142-47 "Embracing the Erotic in the Passion of Andrew:  the Apocryphal Acts of Andrew, the Greek Novel, and Platonic Philosophy" in The Apocryphal Acts of Andrew, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (Leuven:  Peeters, 2000) 110-26 "Francia as Christendom:  The Merovingian Vita Domnae Balthildis," Medieval Encounters 4 (1998): 265-284
Work in Progress	“Children in Early Egyptian Monasticism,” accepted for publication in Cornelia Horn, ed., Children in Late Antique Christianity (Tubingen:  Mohr Siebeck, est. 2009-10) "Alexandria in the Ascetic Imagination:  Early Christian Perspectives from the Egyptian Desert" (under review) "The Blood Sacrifice and Ritual Healing of Children in Egyptian Monastic Literature” "Women Anchorites in Late Antique Egypt" "Antony," Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine Huebner (Oxford:  Wiley Blackwell)
Encyclopedia Entries	"Pachomius," Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine Huebner (Oxford:  Wiley Blackwell), forthcoming "Apophthegmata Patrum," Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine Huebner (Oxford:  Wiley Blackwell), forthcoming "Acts of Andrew," Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine Huebner (Oxford:  Wiley Blackwell), forthcoming
Reviews	Review of Stephen Davis, Coptic Christology in Practice:  Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2008) in Church History:  Studies in Christianity and Culture, forthcoming (est. December 2009) Review of William Lyster, The Cave Church of Paul the Hermit at the Monastery of St. Paul, Egypt (New Haven:  Yale University Press; the American Research Center in Egypt, 2008) in the Catholic Historical Review, forthcoming Review of Nicola Denzey, The Bone Gatherers:  The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women (Boston:  Beacon Press, 2007) in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.09.04 Review of James E. Goehring and Janet A. Timbie, eds., The World of Early Egyptian Christianity:  Language, Literature, and Social Context, Catholic University of America Studies in Early Christianity (Washington, D.C.:  The Catholic University of America Press, 2007) in the Catholic Historical Review, forthcoming Review of Andrew T. Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital:  Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor:  The University of Michigan Press, 2005) in Journal of Early Christian Studies Review of Aideen M. Hartney, Gruesome Deaths and Celibate Lives:  Christian Martyrs and Ascetics, Greece and Rome Live (Exeter:  Bristol Phoenix Press, 2005) in Church History, forthcoming "Conference Report on Cosmopolitan Alexandria:  A Symposium, Cornell University, October 20-21, 2002," Edebiyat:  the Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures 13 (2003): 269-272 Review of Stephen J. Davis, The Cult of St Thecla:  A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2001) in Journal of Ecclesiastical History (forthcoming) Review of Francois Bovon et al., The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Cambridge, Mass.:  Harvard University Press, 1999) in Review of Biblical Literature, online reviews, 2002 Review of Joan M. Peterson, ed. and trans., Handmaids of the Lord:  Holy Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Kalamazoo:  Cistercian Publications, 1996) in Church History:  Studies in Christianity and Culture 68 (1999) 140-41
Invited Lectures & Symposiums	"Children in Early Egyptian Monasticism," The Saint Shenouda Foundation Annual Conference, University of California at Los Angeles, July 17-18 2009 "Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy?  Homoeroticism, Children, and the Making of Monks," Scripps College, February 13, 2008 "Children in the White Monastery and Egyptian Monasticism," Center for the Study of Early Christianity, the Catholic University of America, March 13, 2006 "The Exception or the Rule?  A Monastic Regula from Late Antique Egypt," Late Antique Religions et Societies (LAReS) working group, University of California at Berkeley, October 30, 2005 Respondent to lecture by David Brakke, Center for Late Ancient Studies, Duke University, October 17, 2003 "Alexandria in the Ascetic Imagination:  Early Christian Perspectives from the Egyptian Desert," Cosmopolitan Alexandria, Cornell University, October 20-21, 2002 "Prophecy and Porneia in the Letters of Shenoute,"  Living for Eternity:  The White Monastery and its Neighborhood, University of Minnesota, March 6-9, 2003
Conference Papers	"From Triage to Trauma:  Stories of Children Healed and Harmed in Egyptian Monastic Texts," Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Annual Meeting, November 2008 "Motifs of Child Sacrifice in Early Egyptian Monasticism," International Association of Coptic Studies Congress (IACS), Cairo, September 2007 Review of David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk:  Spiritual Combat in Early Christian Studies (Cambridge, Mass.:  Harvard University Press, 2006), The North American Patristics Society (NAPS), May 2008 "Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy?  Homoeroticism, Children, and the Making of Monks," SBL and American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meetings, Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism and Men's Studies in Religion joint session, November 2007 "Women in Anchoritic and Semi-Anchoritic Monasticism," Oxford International Conference on Patristic Studies, August 2007 "Follow the Yellow Brick Road:  Teaching the Intuitionist from an Interdisciplinary Perspective," Panelist, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, July 2007 "Child Sex and Sacrifice in Early Egyptian Monasticism," Introduction to the Humanities Fellows' Symposium, April 2007 “Monastic Parenting Practices:  Children Endangered and Protected in Early Egyptian Monasteries,” SBL Annual Meeting, Early Christian Families session, November 2006 "Playing the Harlot in an Egyptian Monastery:  The Rhetorics of Sexuality and Prophecy in Shenoute’s Letters," AAR Annual Meeting, Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity session, November 2004 "Alexandrian Theology in the Desert:  Shenoute as Author, Translator, and Scribe," NAPS, May 2004; IACS Congress, Paris, June 2004 "Shenoute on the Resurrection," Oxford International Conference on Patristic Studies, August 2003 "The Church at Shenoute's Monastery:  (Re)constructing a Theology of the Communal Ascetic Life," American Society of Church History (ASCH), January 2003 "Discipline and Punish?  Discourses of the Body in Shenoute's Monastic Rule," NAPS, June 2001 "Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Silver Screen," Southeastern Regional Meeting of the AAR/SBL, American Biblical Hermeneutics session,  March 2001 "The Architecture of Egyptian Asceticism:  Constructing the Church at Shenoute's Monastery," SBL Annual Meeting, November 2000; and Southeastern Regional Meeting of the American Society of  Oriental Research, March 2000 "The Church at Shenoute's Monastery: A Metaphor for Ascetic Discipline," IACS Congress (Leiden), August 2000 "'Until the Lie Ruled Over Them':  Conflicts over Monastic Leadership in Late Antique Egypt," AAR Annual Meeting, History of Christianity session, November 1999 "Purity and the Body in the Asceticism of Shenute of Atripe," Oxford International Conference on Patristic Studies, August 1999 "Embracing the Erotic in the Passion of Andrew:  the Apocryphal Acts of Andrew, the Greek Novel, and Platonic Philosophy," SBL Annual  Meeting, New Testament Apocrypha session, November 1998 "Francia as Christendom:  Gender and Christianization in the  Merovingian Life of Balthild," NAPS, June 1998 "Holy Rape:  Female Bodies and Male Sin in Early Christian Ascetic Literature," Southeastern Regional Meeting of the AAR, History of Christianity session, March 1998 "Politics as Piety:  Gender and Christianization in the Life of Balthild," Duke University Women’s Studies Graduate Research Conference,  November 1997 "Francia as Christendom:  the Merovingian Vita Domnae Balthildis," Princeton Medieval Origins Graduate Conference on Christianization in  the Early Middle Ages, October 1997 "Holy Rape:  Sexual Violence against Women in Early Christian  Literature," Duke University Women's Studies Graduate Research  Conference, February 1997
Reading Languages	French, Greek, Latin, and Coptic; some German, Syriac, Arabic, Middle Egyptian

Professional Organizations

American Academy of Religion Society of Biblical Literature American Society of Church History North American Patristics Society International Association for Coptic Studies American Research Center in Egypt National Women's Studies Association