See my current publications
and projects at: http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomas/docs/index.html
Statement:
Texts have dominated the
study of ancient religions in the Mediterranean world from the Bronze
Age onward. My research to date has been organized around alternate
modes of perception and communication that underlie or overturn textual
modes: the orality present even in ancient written texts, and the
spatial and visual registers that result in the artifacts we dig out
of the ground. I have worked for a decade and a half in Ephesus,Turkey,
to discover and publish such artifacts. Although "Biblical Archeology"
was one of the first subfields of the discipline, the employment of
archaeology to study the religions of the early Christian period lags
far behind its use in other fields and chronological periods in its
theoretical sophistication. Archaeological data are still being used
to illustrate texts, rather than to explore independent modes of communication
that are fundamentally non-textual.
Current
Projects
Excavations
Metropolis: My ongoing
excavation of a 5th-century church in Metropolis, on the border of
ancient Ephesus, Turkey: see
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomas/metropolis/index.html
Ephesus: A new project
on Paul and early Christianity at Ephesus, Turkey: see
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomas/ephesos/index.html
Programs at UCSB
Director of the UCSB Travel-Study
Program in Turkey
http://www.summer.ucsb.edu/TurkeyTravel/turkeygeninfo.html
Co-convener of the Ancient
Borderlands Research Focus Group: see: http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/research/borderlands.html
I am part of of the Mediterranean
Archaeology Colloquium at UCSB: see:
http://www.classics.ucsb.edu/projects/archaeology/index.html
Major
Publications:
Books
- The Acts of
Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel: Rewriting the
Past (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
- with Thomas Drew-Bear,
Actes du Ier Congrès International sur Antioche de Pisidie
(Paris: de Boccard, 2002).
- with Thomas Drew-Bear,
Phrygian Votive Steles (Ankara: Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
1999; distributed, Paris: de Boccard).
Selected Articles
- “Placing the Dead:
Funerary Practice and Social Stratification in the Early Roman Period
at Corinth and Ephesos,” in S. Friesen and D. Schowalter,
eds., Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 2005) 281-304.
- “The ‘Mountain
Mother’: The Other Anatolian Goddess at Ephesos,” in
Guy Labarre and Jean-Marc Moret, eds., Les cultes locaux dans
les mondes grec et romain (Paris: de Boccard) 249-62.
- “The Scriptures
and the New Prophecy: Montanism as Exegetical Crisis,” in
D. Warren, E. Brock, et al., eds., Early Christian Voices in
Texts, Traditions, and Symbols (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 155-65.
- “The Acts of Paul
as a Source for the Life of Paul,” in Actes du Ier Congrès
International sur Antioche de Pisidie (Paris: de Boccard, 2002)
85-92.
- “The Sanctuary
of Demeter at Pergamon: Cultic Space for Women and Its Eclipse”
in Helmut Koester, ed., Pergamon Citadel of the Gods (Philadelphia:
Trinity Press International, 1998) 277-98, pls. 44-45.
- “Stories Without
Texts and Without Authors: The Problem of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic
Texts and Early Christian Literature,” in Ronald Hock, et
al., ed., New Perspectives on Ancient Fiction and the New Testament
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998) 273-91.
Courses
Taught:
Undergraduate:
- RS 24: Teachings of
Jesus in Comparative Perspective
- RS 116A: The New Testament
and Early Christianity
- RS 116B: Second Century
Christianity
- RS 116C: Archaeology
and the Study of Religion
- RS 127A: Christian Thought
and Cultures of the Ancient World
- RS 128A: Religion and
Spirituality in the Roman Empire
- RS 128C: Sacred Geography
of the Ancient Mediterranean
- RS 137: Gnosticism and
Manichaeism
- RS 139A: Early Christian
Literature in Greek
- RS 139B: Greek and Latin
Religious Texts
- RS 139C-E: Coptic Language
and Literature
Graduate:
- RS 205A: Religious Literature
in Greek
- RS 205B: Religious Literature
in Latin
- RS 205C: Religious Literature
in Coptic
- RS 251A: Seminar in
Hellenistic Religions
- RS 252A: Seminar in
Christian Origins
- RS 252B: Asceticism
and the Construction of Self
Curriculum
Vitae:
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomascv.htm
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