Director

Martin Bloomer

Contributing Faculty

Joseph Amar
Charles Barber

Martin Bloomer
Keith Bradley
John Cavadini
Brian Daley
Blake Leyerle
Daniel Sheerin
Robin Darling Young

Associated Faculty

Asma Afsaruddin
David Aune
Mary Rose D'Angelo
Stephen Gersh
David Jenkins
Maxwell Johnson
Mary Keyes
Brian Krostenko
David Ladouceur
John Meier

Hildegund Müller
Jerome Neyrey
David O'Connor
Gretchen Reydams Schils
Michael Signer
Gregory Sterling

ECS Contributing Faculty Biographies

Joseph Amar
Professor, Department of Classics
Concurrent Professor, Dept. of Theology

B.A. (1970); S.T.B. (1973); S.T.L. (1974); M.A. (1988); Ph.D. (1988), The Catholic University of America.

Professor Amar is a linguist trained in ancient and modern Semitic languages and in the histories, religions, and cultures of the Middle East. He specializes in classical and Christian Arabic, in Syriac literary culture, and in early interactions between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Amar directs the programs in Arabic and Syriac at the University of Notre Dame, and serves on the editorial board of the Library of Early Christianity. He has recently published the two-volume work: Dionysius Bar Salibi's Response to the Arabs, (2006). His other books include St. Ephrem the Syrian and The Mimra of Jacob of Sarug on Holy Mar Ephrem. He has published in Patrologia Orientalis, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Diakonia, Le Museon as well as in Commonweal and Worship. Professor Amar has a joint appointment in the Department of Classics and the Department of Theology.

Office: 257 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: 574-631--6276
E-mail: Amar.1@nd.edu

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Charles Barber
Michael P. Grace Professor of Art History
Department of Art, Art History, and Design
B.A. Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London (1986); Ph.D. Courtauld Institute of Art (1989).

Barber's teaching interests include undergraduate lecture courses on all aspects of Early Christian, Byzantine, and Medieval Art. His research interests include Early Christian and Byzantine Art. Barber has written extensively on theories of the image in Byzantium. His projects include the influence of Aristotelian thinking on 11th-century habits of viewing, publishing (with students) the Snite Museum's collection of Greek and Russian icons, examining the poetics of post-Byzantine painting, and the Apocalypse in the Greek tradition.

Office: 118 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: 574-631--7686
E-mail: Barber.11@nd.edu

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Martin Bloomer
Director, Early Christian Studies
Associate Professor
Department of Classics
B.A. (1982); M.A. (1983); M. Phil. (1984); Ph.D. (1987); Yale University.

Professor Bloomer teaches both Greek and Latin literature. He has published mostly on Roman literary history including a study of Valerius Maximus, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility, Chapel Hill, 1993 and Latinity and Literary Society at Rome, Philadelphia, 1997. His latest volume The School of Rome is forthcoming from the University of California Press.

Expertise: Latin literature; Ancient Rhetoric; History of Education

Office: 361 Decio Hall
Phone: 574-631-2324
E-Mail: Bloomer.1@nd.edu

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Keith Bradley
Eli J. Shaheen Professor
Department of Classics
Concurrent in Department of History
B.A. Sheffield University, 1967; M.A. Sheffield University, 1968; BLitt Oxford University, 1975; LittD Sheffield University, 1997; FSA 1993; FRSC 1997).

Bradley is an ancient historian who specializes in the social and cultural history of Rome. He has particular interests in the history of slavery, the history of the family, and the history of religion in classical antiquity. He is currently combining and extending these interests in a long-term study of the Romano-African author Apuleius. Bradley's chief interest in teaching lies in introducing students, both undergraduates and graduates, to the endless fascination of ancient Roman society and culture.

Office: 349 Decio Hall
Phone: 574-631-0395
E-Mail: Bradley.45@nd.edu

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John C. Cavadini
Department Chair
Associate Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. Wesleyan University (1975); M.A. Marquette University (1979); M.A. M.Phil. Yale University (1981) and Ph.D. Yale University (1988).

Cavadini is a scholar of patristic and early medieval theology, with special interests in the theology of Augustine and in the history of biblical exegesis, both Eastern and Western, as well as in the reception and interpretation of patristic thought in the West from the sixth through the ninth centuries. His publications include three books, Miracles in Christian and Jewish Antiquity: Imagining the Truth, (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999); Gregory the Great: A Symposium, (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996); and The Last Christology of the West: Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul, 785-820, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). His articles have appeared in such journals as Theological Studies, Religious Studies Review, Traditio, Augustinian Studies, and American Benedictine Review.

Office: 130G Malloy Hall
Phone: 574-631-6662
E-Mail: Cavadini.1@nd.edu

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Fr. Daley is a historical theologian, who specializes in the study of the early Church, particularly the development of Christian doctrine from the fourth to the eighth centuries. He has prepared a critical edition of the works of the sixth-century Greek theologian Leontius of Byzantium, which is to appear in the series "Corpus Christianorum," and has written a number of articles for scholarly journals on ancient Christology, Trinitarian theology and eschatology. His most recent books are The Hope of the Early Church, (1991) and On The Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies, (1997). Presently he is working on a commentary on the Book of Psalms drawn from Patristic exegetical sources, as well as a book on Gregory of Nazianzus. In 2002, he will deliver the D'Arcy Lectures in Oxford, surveying the shape and implications of classical Christology in the patristic period. A past president of the North American Patristic Society, he is an editor of the scholarly journal Traditio, and also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Early Christian Studies. He has been a trustee of Le Moyne College, of Boston College, and of Georgetown and Fordham Universities, and is executive secretary of the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation in North America.

Office: 346 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574-631-6629
E-Mail: Daley.3@nd.edu

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Blake Leyerle
The John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C., Associate Professor of Theology
Department of Theology
B.A. Yale University (1982); M.A. Duke University (1988); Ph.D. Duke University (1991).

Blake Leyerle's scholarly specialization lies in the social history of early Christianity. She has published on a wide range of social historical topics in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, Harvard Theological Review, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Religion and various edited volumes. Her book, Theatrical Shows and ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom's Attack on Spiritual Marriage, is forthcoming from the University of California Press. She has served as co-chair of the History of Christianity Section of the American Academy of Religion, and is now co-chair of the Archaeology and Texts from Late Antiquity Consultation of the Society of Biblical Literature. Leyerle is currently at work on a book-length study of pilgrimage, tentatively entitled, Traveling Space: Theorizing Early Christian Pilgrimage.

Office: 444 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574-631-7090
E-Mail: Leyerle.1@nd.edu

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Daniel Sheerin
Professor, Emeritus
Department of Classics
Concurrent Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1965); Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1969).

Expertise: Medieval Latin, Early Christian Studies, Erasmus

Office: 372 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: 574-631-6236
E-Mail: Sheerin.1@nd.edu

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Associated Faculty

Asma Afsaruddin
Associate Professor
Department of Classics
A.B. Oberlin College (1982); Ph.D. the Johns Hopkins University (1993).

Professor Afsaruddin's scholarly research focuses on the early religious and political history of Islam, Qur'an and hadith studies, classical and modern Arabic literature. She has recently edited Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female "Public" Space in Islamic/ate Societies (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), co-edited Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East (Winona Lake, Ind., 1997), and has published a number of articles on Islamic thought and literature. She is currently working on a monograph which deals with the concept of legitimate leadership in Islamic society.

Office: 341 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: 574-631-8677
E-Mail: Afsaruddin.1@nd.edu

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David E. Aune
Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. Wheaton College (1961); M.A. Wheaton Graduate School of Theology (1963); M.A. University of Minnesota (1965); Ph.D. University of Chicago (1970).

Aune's areas of interest center on the study of the New Testament and early Christian literature in the context of Greco-Roman society and culture. He is the author or editor of several books, most recently The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study: Studies in Memory of William G. Thompson, S.J. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), and a three-volume commentary on Revelation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997-98). He was awarded a Fulbright visiting professorship at the University of Trondheim, Norway (1982-83), and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize at the University of Tuebingen, Germany (1994-95). Current projects nearing completion include a volume on "Greco-Roman Culture and the New Testament" (Doubleday), and a "Dictionary of Early Christian Literature" (Westminster John Knox).

Office: 230 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574-631-4578
E-Mail: Aune.1@nd.edu

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Mary Rose D'Angelo
Associate Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. Fordham University (1969); M.Phil. Yale University (1972); Ph.D. Yale University (1976).

D'Angelo's areas of scholarly endeavor are the origins of Christianity, Judaism in Roman antiquity and Greek and Roman religion, with particular interests in women and gender in ancient religion, and in history of exegesis. Author of Moses in the Letter to the Hebrews (1979) and co-editor of Women in Christian Origins (1999) and of Crossroads in Christology: Essays in Honor of Ellen M. Leonard; Toronto Journal of Theology 16 (2000), she has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals and collections on such topics as the reconstruction of women's participation in early Christianity, the representation of women in the gospels, gendered language for the divine in ancient Judaism and Christianity, and gender and sexual politics in ancient Christianity and Judaism. She is currently working on a project entitled: Early Christian Sexual Politics and Roman Imperial Family Values: Rereading Christ and Culture, with support from a Henry Luce III Fellowship (1999-2000).

Office: 359 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: 574 631-7040
E-Mail: DAngelo.2@nd.edu

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Stephen Gersh
Late Antique Philosophy
Department of Philosophy

Professor Gersh specializes in early and late medieval philosophy and neo-platonism.

Office: 715H Hesburgh Library
Phone: 574 631-6081
E-Mail: Gersh.1@nd.edu

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David Jenkins
Byzantine Librarian

University Libraries

David Jenkins is the Byzantine Librarian, associated closely with the Anastasos Byzantine Library.

Office: 123 Hesburgh Library
Phone: 574 631-9036
E-Mail: Jenkins.31@nd.edu

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Maxwell E. Johnson
Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. Augustana College (1974); M.Div. Wartburg Theological Seminary (1978); M.A. School of Theology, St. John's University (1982); M.A. University of Notre Dame (1989); Ph.D. University of Notre Dame (1992).

Johnson's research interests are in the origins and development of early Christian Liturgy and in the history and theology of the rites of Christian initiation. His recent book, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville: Pueblo), was chosen by Alcuin Club, England, as their 1999 selection. The author of three other books, including The Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis in the Orientalia Christiana Analecta monograph series published by the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, and over 40 articles in scholarly and pastoral-theological publications, books forthcoming in 2001 include Images of Baptism (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications), as editor and contributor, Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville: Pueblo), and, as co-author with Paul Bradshaw and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, Hermeneia Commentary Series (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press). Johnson is currently engaged in research toward the writing of a book on the Virgin of Guadalupe from an ecumenical-liturgical perspective. He was also the recipient of the First Prize in the Joseph Essay Contest sponsored by the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, Italy, for his essay, The Archaic Shape of the Sanctus, Institution Narrative, and Epiclesis of the Logos in the Anaphora ascribed to Sarapion of Thmuis. An editorial consultant for Worship, a member of The North American Academy of Liturgy and Societas Liturgica, Johnson has also received the Paul R. Fenlon Award for Teaching from Sorin Hall, University of Notre Dame, and the Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching Award from the Notre Dame Alumni association.

Office: 432 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574 631-4118
E-Mail: Johnson.254@nd.edu

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Mary Keyes
Associate Professor of Early Christian Political Thought

Department of Political Science

Office: 623 Flanner Hall
Phone: 574 631-6921
E-Mail: Keys.3@nd.edu

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Brian Krostenko
Associate Professor
Department of Classics
AB, Princeton; PhD Harvard

Krostenko specializes in the Roman literature of the Republic, with a special interest in Cicero and rhetoric. He also has interests in linguistics, especially Indo-European and comparative syntax, and in cultural semiotics. He is the author of Cicero, Catullus, and the Language of Social Performance (Chicago, 2001). This academic year he holds a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Office: 356 Decio Hall
Phone: 574 631-0451
E-Mail: bkrosten@nd.edu

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David Ladouceur
Associate Professor
Department of Classics
PhD Brown University (1976)

Professor Ladouceur's areas of interent lie in Hellenistic and Graeco-Jewish literature and in early Christian Latin. Apart from articles,
he has published a commentary on Plutarch's Themistocles and has a forthcoming commentary on the Gallican Psalter. He recently recieved a grant to develop a course in the history of ancient medicine and is currently researching the influence of medical texts on certain Greek works of the Hellenistic period. He is also contributing a series of articles to a new encyclopedia of ancient military history.

Office: 363 Decio Hall
Phone: 574 631-6519
Email: dladouce@nd.edu

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John P. Meier
Professor
Department of Theology
B.A. St. Joseph's Seminary and College (1964); S.T.L. Gregorian University, Rome (1968); S.S.D. Biblical Institute, Rome (1976).

Meier's scholarly interests are in the area of New Testament, specifically the historical Jesus and the Gospel of Matthew, as well as Palestinian Judaism in the first century A.D. Having published volumes one and two of A Marginal Jew in 1991 and 1994, he will publish volume three in the Fall of 2001; he has already begun work on the fourth and final volume of the series. He has also written six other books as well as over fifty articles for peer reviewed or solicited journals or books. At various times he has been the editor or Associate editor of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly and New Testament Studies. He is a member of the international advisory committee of the Cardinal Suenens Program in Theology and Church Life. Since 1983 he has been a member of the international dialogue between the Disciples of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church. In May, 1999, he delivered one of the major invited lectures at the 75th anniversary of the Biblical Institute in Rome, and in October of 2000, he delivered the annual Bellarmine lecture at the University of St. Louis.

Office: 722 Flanner Hall
Phone: 574 631-8300
E-Mail: Meier.10@nd.edu

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Hildegund Müller is a specialist of late antique Latin literature, both poetry and prose, especially the Latin Church Fathers. She has published a critical edition of a part of Augustine’s Psalm Sermons (Enarrationes in Psalmos) for the CSEL series, as well as numerous studies on this and other late antique sermon collections.  Her interest in late antique homilies covers widely different  aspects, such as their relation to classical rhetoric, their use of Biblical and other sources, the way they are shaped by improvisation and orality, and their Nachleben in the Middle Ages. Her other field of interest is the Latin Middle Ages, especially poetry and (early) exegesis. She wrote her dissertation on an exegetical collection from the late Carolingian era (the so-called ‘Luculentius’ homiliary) and published articles on poetry from the 11th and 12th centuries. Her favorite classical authors are Cicero and Horace.

Office: 373 Decio Hall
Phone: 574 631-7692
E-Mail: Muller.17@nd.edu

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Rev. Jerome Neyrey, SJ
Biblical Literary Studies
Department of Theology
B.A. Saint Louis University (1963); M.A. Saint Loius University (1964); M.Div. Regis College (1970); M.T.H. Regis College, Toronto (1972); Ph.D. Yale University (1977).

Office: 240 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574 631-7469
E-Mail: Neyrey.1@nd.edu

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David K. O'Connor
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Concurrent Associate Professor
Department of Classics
B.A. University of Notre Dame (1980); Ph.D. Stanford University (1985).

Professor O'Connor's interests include ancient philosophy, ethics and political philosophy, and philosophy and literature. He is co-editor of Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, and Socrates and Aristotle have been at the center of his scholarly writing and lecturing. His work in philosophy and literature has given special emphasis to Shakespeare and to Wallace Stevens. He is a regular contributor to three of Notre Dame's undergraduate concentrations: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), Philosophy and Literature, and the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy. He has served terms in the Philosophy Department as Director of Graduate Studies and as Director of Undergraduate Studies. Professor O'Connor is also an occasional speaker on business and personal ethics for the Executive M.B.A. and Supervisory Development programs of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, and in the outside world as Senior Fellow of the Morris Institute of Human Values

Office: 332 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574 631-6226
E-Mail: O'Connor.2@nd.edu

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Gretchen Reydams-Schils
Professor
Program of Liberal Studies
B.A. Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; M.A. University of Cincinnati; Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley.

Reydams-Schils is a Classicist working on Ancient Philosophy, more specifically on Plato, Platonism and Stoicism. She also has an interest in feminist philosophy, and in public policy making concerning the humanities. At Notre dame she works together with colleagues in Classics, Philosophy, Theology, History and Philosophy of Science, and the Medieval Institute. She is a Fellow of the Nanovic Center for European Studies, and of the Philo Institute. She is the coordinator of the Notre Dame Workshop in Ancient Philosophy. Currently she is working on the Roman Stoics mode of mediation between the philosophical ideal and commitments to society as given.

Office: 574 631-7535
Phone: 343 Decio Faculty Hall
E-Mail: Reydams-Schils.1@nd.edu

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Michael A. Signer
Abrams Professor
Department of Theology
Senior Fellow of the Medieval Institute
B.A. University of California, Los Angeles (1966); M.A. Hebrew Union College (1970); Rabbinic Ordination, Hebrew Union College (1970); Ph.D. University of Toronto (1978).

Rabbi Signer is Director of the Notre Dame Holocaust Project, an interdisciplinary faculty group that designs educational opportunities for students to engage in the study of the Shoah. Since 1998, he has been co-chair of the Joint Commission on Interreligious Affairs of the Reform movement. Rabbi Signer is the author and editor of five books on topics that range from Medieval Latin biblical commentaries to contemporary Jewish-Christian relations. He has written articles for the Oxford Dictionary of Judaism, the Encyclopedia of Medieval France, and the Encyclopedia of St. Augustine.

Office: 248 Malloy Hall
Phone: 574 631-7635
E-Mail: Signer.1@nd.edu

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Gregory E. Sterling
Dean of Graduate School and

Professor of Theology
Department of Theology
B.A. Houston Baptist University (1978); M.A. Pepperdine University (1980); M.A. University of California at Davis (1982); Ph.D. Graduate Theological Union (1990).

Sterling's areas of interest are the ways in which Second Temple Jews and early Christians interacted with one another and with the Greco-Roman world. He has concentrated on three authors. His work on Historiography and Self-Definition (1992) addressed how Josephus and Luke-Acts responded to the larger world. He is currently at work on a book entitled The Jewish Plato that explores the importance of Philo of Alexandria as a witness to Jewish traditions that helped to shape early Christian thought. He has edited or co-edited five other books and written twenty-five articles in peer-reviewed journals or solicited books. He is co-editor of The Studia Philonica Annual, general editor of The Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series as well as the Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Series, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals.

Office: 98 O'Shaughnessy Hall
Phone: 574 631-3756
E-Mail: Sterling.1@nd.edu

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