简介

I study the intersection of religion and philosophy with Roman politics, as well as the process of "conversion" in Late Antiquity. My latest book, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution (Cornell 2012), explores the interactions of Platonist philosophers and Christian theologians in the period leading up to the Great Persecution of AD 303-11. My new research explores the issue of religious diversity within the Roman empire: when religions appeared in the center from the frontier, when did Romans appropriate them? when did their differences spark violence? What happened to these tensions when imperial administration moved out of the city of Rome to the cities of Trier, Milan, Serdica (Sofia), Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch? Increasingly in my research, I am interested in exploring the relevance of theories of identity formation and cultural entanglement first used by historians to study the southwest US borderlands. **If you are interested in pursuing graduate work with me, please contact me directly through email.**