English
Deutsch
Susanna Elm
Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow - Class of Spring 2007
Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley
Biography
Susanna Elm is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also chairs the graduate program in Ancient Mediterranean History and Archeology. Her primary field of research is the social and cultural history of the later Roman Empire, with a focus on early Christianity and ancient medicine. Her publications include Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Clarendon, 1994/1996); Medical Challenges for the New Millennium: An Interdisciplinary Task (Kluver, 2001), co-edited with Stefan Willich; and Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoire/Orthodoxy, Christianity, History, co-edited with Éric Rebillard and Antonella Romano (École française de Rome, 2000); as well as many articles and book reviews. She is currently completing a book titled Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Gregory of Nazianzus, Emperor Julian and the Christianization of the Late Roman Elites. Her past accolades include a Rhodes Scholarship and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. She received her BA in history and classics from the Freie Universität, Berlin, and a DPhil in Literae Humaniores from Oxford in 1986.
American Academy Project
Stigmata/Tattoos: The "Ideology" and Practice of Slavery and the Evolution of Late Antique Christianity
Her project while at the Academy analyses practices of stigmata in relation to slavery in early Christianity. The German-born scholar has an extensive network of contacts in Berlin that she will use toward organizing a conference on contemporary medicine and other intellectual collaborations.
Selected Works
Virgins of God. The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity Oxford Classical Monograph Series. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994; Paperback, 1996, re-ed. 1999, 2003).
The "Holy Man" Revisited (1971-1997): Charisma, Texts, and Communities in Late Antiquity. Ed. Susanna Elm and Naomi Janowitz. Special Issue Journal of Early Christian Studies 6: 3 (1998).
Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoire - Orthodoxy, Christianity, History. Ed. Susanna Elm, Éric Rebillard and Antonella Romano. Collection de l'École française de Rome 270. Rome: École française de Rome, 2000.
Medical Challenges for the New Millennium - An Interdisciplinary Task. Ed. Stefan N. Willich and Susanna Elm. New York/Amsterdam: Kluver, 2001.
Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices. Ed. H. Drake and co-ed. E. Albu, S. Elm, M. Maas, C. Rapp, M. Salzman. London: Ashgate, 2006.
Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Gregory of Nazianzus, Emperor Julian, and the Christianization of the Late Roman Elites. In preparation. Quo Vadis - Medical Healing. Past Concepts and New Approaches. Ed. Susanna Elm and Stefan Willich. New York: Springer, forthcoming.