During my time as a Research Fellow, I worked on several related projects. First, I examined how the Roman church understood and responded to forced migration during periods of instability in Late Antiquity, with a particular focus on the reception of men and women from North Africa in the aftermath of the Vandal conquests. This research is currently under review for publication, and I hope it will appear in late 2020. Second, I examined aspects of migration within and around the city of Rome. Specifically, I considered the relationship between areas inside and outside the city’s walls and how the movement of men and women within and between these spaces related to disputes over the jurisdictional authority of the church, contested papal elections, and changing conceptions of churches as sacred spaces. I presented a preliminary version of this work at the 2019 International Medieval Congress, Leeds, at a special panel entitled Materialities of Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, which I co-organized with Dr. Guido Berndt (Freie Universität Berlin) and Roland Steinacher (Universität Innsbruck). This research has resulted in several forthcoming publications. The first, which examines Gregory the Great and the rededication of ‘Arian’ churches in Rome, will appear in the Journal of Early Christian Studies (30.2). The second, which examines micro-migration inside Rome itself, will be published in Late Antique Archaeology 13. Third, together with András Handl (KU Leuven), I am editing two volumes of the Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, which examine the intersection between migration and religious identity in Late Antiquity. The papers in these volumes are based on presentations given at the XVIII International Conference on Patristics Studies held at Oxford University in August 2019 at two workshops entitled Migration: Rhetoric and Reality, which I also organized in my capacity as a Fellow with Dr. Handl. In addition to my editorial duties, I will also be contributing an article entitled “Saint Anastasia, the gesta martyrum, and ‘foreignness’ in Late Antique Rome.” Finally, during my time as a Research Fellow I completed a book chapter entitled “You have made common cause with the Persecutors”: The Language of Persecution and the Acacian Schism," which appears in Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (2019), edited by Éric Fournier and Wendy Meyer. This essay examines the evocation of the language of Christian persecution in fifth- and sixth-century Christological debates.
For more information about Samuel Cohen, please click here.