Contact
Biography
I work on the religious, cultural and social history of the middle east in the medieval and early modern periods.
My background is in late antique and Byzantine history. I completed a BA in History, an MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and a DPhil on sixth-century hagiography at the University of Oxford. After finishing my doctoral thesis in 2016, I moved forward a millennium to work on early modern religion for two years as a Research Associate on the ERC-funded project, 'Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World'. Since then I have held two Departmental Lectureships in Oxford, as well as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019-22). My first book, Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch: From Hagiography to History, was published in 2022. I joined the University of Nottingham as an Assistant Professor in September 2023.
Expertise Summary
I am interested in religious history in its broader social and cultural context. My most recent research project, which I began as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, explores the monks, martyrs, and hagiography of early Islamic Palestine, investigating how and how far the rise of Islam challenged traditional models of holiness and religious authority within middle eastern Christianity.
Hagiography was also at the heart of my first book, which derived from my doctoral research. My monograph, Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch: from Hagiography to History (Oxford, 2022), explores the cult of Symeon Stylites the Younger, an influential but little-studied holy man who lived in the sixth century near Antioch-on-the-Orontes. I attempt to rethink the figure of the holy man in late antiquity, reading hagiography 'against the grain' in order to uncover scepticism and doubt about holy men and miracles, scepticism which in Symeon's case was exacerbated by the series of disasters which afflicted the eastern Roman empire during his lifetime.
I am also very interested in early modern eastern Christianity. I discovered a love for sixteenth-century Syriac manuscripts while working as a Research Associate on the ERC-funded project 'Stories of Survival: Recovering the Connected Histories of Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern World'. I have focused in particular on the Syriac-using Christian communities of the eastern Ottoman empire, their manuscripts and archival traditions, and their global connections. I am preparing an edition of three unique Syriac poems by the sixteenth-century Chaldean patriarch, Abdisho of Gazarta, about his murdered predecessor Yohannan Sulaqa.
I am keen to hear from prospective graduate students interested in eastern Christianity, Byzantium, medieval or early modern hagiography, and middle eastern archiving/manuscript culture.
Teaching Summary
My office hours are Mondays 14:00 to 15:00 and Tuesdays 14:30 to 15:30, in person or on Teams; please email me to make an appointment. I may be able to offer Teams appointments later in the week as… read more
Selected Publications
LUCY PARKER, 2022. On the Margins of Empire: Confessionalization and the East Syrian Schism of 1552. In: TIJANA KRSTIĆ and DERIN TERZIOĞLU, eds., Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on the Politics of Piety and Community Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th centuries Gorgias Press. 429-50
My office hours are Mondays 14:00 to 15:00 and Tuesdays 14:30 to 15:30, in person or on Teams; please email me to make an appointment. I may be able to offer Teams appointments later in the week as well.
In the 2023-4 academic year, I will be contributing to teaching on the 'Learning History' and 'Themes in Early Modern History' first-year modules. I am also contributing to the MA Medieval History paper, 'Power, Authority and Dissent: Sources in Medieval History'.
I am acting as Undergraduate Dissertation Co-ordinator.