Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry was recently featured on the Broadcast Seeding podcast, hosted by Richard Newton (University of Alabama), to discuss her new book, Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2024).

In the episode, Barry and Newton explore political intrigue in the early church, the concept of “gender transmission diseases,” and the intersections of biblical studies, gender, and theology. Their discussion examines how ancient fantasies of purity and danger shaped Christian thought and continue to inform modern conversations about gender and power.

Listen to the episode: Broadcast Seeding Podcast: “Gender Violence in Late Antiquity”

Barry also recently published a new chapter, “Gender, Violence, and False Friends in the Oratio funebris,” in The City and Its Teacher: The Funerary Oration for John Chrysostom and its Historical Context, edited by Jonathan Stutz (Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity, Mohr Siebeck, 2025). The volume is available through Mohr Siebeck.

Together, these works extend Barry’s research into how narratives of violence, sanctity, and power shaped Christian identity and imagination in late antiquity.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry was recently featured on the New Books in Late Antiquity podcast, part of the New Books Network, in conversation with host Miranda Melcher of King’s College London.

In this episode, Barry discusses her recent monograph, Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2025). The conversation explores how early Christian authors used narratives of gendered harm — particularly domestic violence, martyrdom, and sexualized suffering — to shape theology, consolidate authority, and imagine social order.

Barry and Melcher also reflect on how feminist horror theory, trauma studies, and womanist scholarship open new pathways for interpreting ancient texts and understanding their enduring legacies in modern Christian thought. The full episode is available online through the New Books Network: Gender Violence in Late Antiquity

The cover of Barry’s recently published monograph with the University of California Press

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry published her second scholarly monograph, Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination, with the University of California Press.

Barry’s new book examines how early Christian writers used narratives of gendered harm—especially domestic violence—to shape theology, consolidate authority, and imagine social order.

Later this month, she will give an invited book talk at the University of Pittsburgh highlighting this material and exploring how depictions of violence within the household became central to Christian thought.

Barry was also recently featured on the New Books in Late Antiquity podcast, presented by Ancient Jew Review, to discuss her monograph.

In the interview, Barry explores how early Christian writers used narratives of gendered harm—especially domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence—to shape theology, consolidate authority, and imagine social order. She also reflects on how feminist horror theory, trauma studies, and womanist scholarship offer new perspectives on these texts and their enduring impact on the study of gender and power.

Barry joined host Michael Motia (UMass Boston) for the conversation, which is now available online.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry was recently elected Associate Editor for the Journal of Early Christian Studies (JECS). This prestigious appointment reflects Barry’s national reputation in the field of Late Antiquity and early Christian historiography. The JECS is a leading peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of Christianity in the ancient world. In her new role, Barry will help shape the direction of cutting-edge scholarship in the field, bringing her expertise in gender, rhetoric and historical memory to one of the discipline’s most influential journals.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Jennifer Barry, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, was invited to be the 2024, Marsico Visiting Scholar at Denver University. Barry was invited to share material from the next book, meet with both undergraduate and graduate students, and co-teach a course on Gender and Sexuality in Early Christianity.

Barry also recently was honored with a book panel publication. The latest forum on Ancient Jew Review published the entire collection of reviews on Jennifer Barry’s Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity. The collection can be found here: SBL 2021 Review Panel: Bishops in Flight

Barry is currently on research leave as the 2023-2024 Harvard, Loeb Classical Library Fellow.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Jennifer Barry, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, was recently published in the Journal of Late Antiquity. Her article, “A Bad Romance: Late Ancient Fantasy, Violence, and Christian Hagiography” spotlights material in her current book project on gender violence in late ancient Christian hagiographies (saint’s lives).

The following is an abstract of the article:

In Gerontius’s labor of love, the Life of Melania the Younger, the hagiographer makes it clear that this is an intentional exercise in memory-making as well as a performance of personal piety. To craft his hagiographical fantasy, Gerontius imports romantic themes from Greek romance novels and ancient dream theory to evaluate Melania’s pre-saintly life. Here, I explore the framing of the vita as a genre-bending (bad) romance and resituate this text within a larger discourse of constructed male fantasies of gender-based violence. To accomplish this goal, I examine overlapping themes in Christian and non-Christian Greek novels to emphasize references to sexual violence in the Life of Melania the Younger. Then, I show how the use of ancient dream theory frames the hagiographical project and produces what I identify as a male fantasy. Finally, I conclude that the hagiographical project—the intentional act of writing holiness—produced a troubling vision of sanctioned domestic violence.