Assistant Professor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Heritage Hall 360K
(205) 934-8695

Research and Teaching Interests: Late antiquity, ancient Mediterranean & Near Eastern religions, history of philosophy, women & gender, Coptic literature and material culture, ritual power (magic), mysticism, asceticism

Office Hours: M/W/F 12:20 – 1:10 p.m.

Education:

• B.A., University of California, Berkeley
• M.Litt., University of St. Andrews, Philosophy
• M.A., Duke University, Religious Studies
• Ph.D., Indiana University, History and Religious Studies

Tola Rodrick specializes in the social, intellectual, and religious history of the late ancient Mediterranean and early medieval world. Her work explores the following themes: the construction of identity and processes of socialization into competing social groups, gender-related strategies for negotiating that transition, the role of cultural competition in group dynamics, and amplifying historically marginalized voices within these contexts.

Dr. Rodrick’s current book project, Beginning the Philosophical Life: The Earliest Stages of Monastic Training in Late Ancient Egypt, is a study of the initial steps of monastic training and socialization in fourth- and fifth-century Egypt with particular attention to their connections to traditional philosophical educational and social practices in the wider Roman Empire, including spiritual exercises and other elements of identity-construction.