This conference celebrates the field-shaping scholarship of Professor Blake Leyerle with a series of papers from leading scholars which will investigate the early Christian social and theological imagination through critical attention to the use and power of language. Papers will address this central theme through historical and philological analyses of rhetoric and emotion, pilgrimage and narrative, conversion and identity, and animality and embodiment.
Attendance is free but registration is required, with lunch and refreshments provided. Please register by Wednesday, May 13th.
Schedule
10:00am - Assemble; Coffee and pastries available
Scholars Lounge, Hesburgh Library
10:30am - Welcome
Carey Auditorium
Session 1
10:45am - Robin Jensen: “Lamps, Bowls, and Other Daily Objects as Evidence for Domestic Christianity in Roman Africa”
11:30am - Jeremiah Coogan: “Callistus’s Confessing Body”
12:15pm - Lunch
Session 2
1:15pm - Andrew Jacobs: “When Saul Became Paul: Τhe Narrative Shape of Conversion in John Chrysostom’s On Changing Names”
2:00pm - Margaret M. Mitchell: “Gospel Performances: Theatrical Reappropriations and Reversals in John Chrysostom’s Opening Homily on John”
2:45pm - Coffee
Session 3
3:15pm - Warren Campbell: “The Demands of Death: Funerary Practices in Chrysostom’s Antioch”
4:00pm - Candida Moss: “The Chameleon in Ancient Imagination”
4:45pm - Conclude (Mellon Saint-Laurent)
5:00pm - Reception
Where: Hesburgh Library, Carey Auditorium and Scholars Lounge
Start Time: May 20, 2026 10:00AM EDT
End Time: May 20, 2026 05:00PM EDT