Research Areas

Ancient History with a focus on the political, economic, religious and cultural history of the later Roman Empire, East and West. Current projects include a monograph submitted to UC Press, The Importance of Being Gorgeous: Queering Christian Imperial Rule (in Late Antiquity) which should come out in 2024.  I will then focus again on  Augustine of Hippo and enslavement and a theology of economics.

A volume entitled War and Community in late Antiquity, edited by Kristina Sess and myself will also appear in 2024 (Cambridge) and represents a further current interest.

Publications

Books

The Importance of Being Gorgeous: Queering Christian Imperial Rule (in LAte Antiquity), submitted to UC Press.

A Short History of Ancient Christianity. With Rebecca Lyman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract.

New Men for a New Rome: Masculinity, Ethnicity, Fashion, Display and the Later Roman Empire, Berkeley: University of California Press, under contract.

Sold: Augustine of Hippo on Slavery, Taxation, and Original Sin. In preparation.

Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome.  Berkeley: UC Press, 2012; paperback 2015. Winner 2013 C. J. Goodwin Award of Merit, American Philological Association.

Virgins of God. The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity.  Oxford Classical Monograph Series. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994; Paperback, 1996, re-ed. 1999, 2003; e-book 2006).