Blossom Stefaniw

My main research interests are texts and bodies, which I study in the context of masculinity and asceticism in early Christianity, especially late Roman Egypt.

Both interests are based on the desire to know how early Christian monks are doing their work, what they think that work consists of, why they think it is necessary, and which relationships, institutions, and discursive strategies are connected with the ascetic task.

I continue to work on textuality, education, and master-disciple relationships in 3rd to 5th century Christian asceticism, primarily in Egypt and Palestine. I have worked extensively on reading practices in Origen of Alexandria, Evagrius Ponticus, and Didymus the Blind. I am currently pursuing a book project which re-interprets the work of Didymus as recorded in the Tura Papyri, radically revising the received picture of Didymus. I am also working on the Teachings of Silvanus, a text which has not received very much attention in recent years but appears to have been highly influential on the writings of both Evagrius Ponticus and Antony the Great.

A new and increasingly intense interest is research into masculinity as a contested and volatile resource in the fourth century. This interest, closely entwined with the above, was behind my research on Straight Reading: Shame and the Normal in Epiphanius Polemic against Origen. It is likewise behind current research into manhood in the Lausiac History of Palladius.

I am currently Junior Professor for Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity in Mainz (Germany) but trained primarily in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.