Prof Kate Cooper - research

Specific research interests:

Dr. Cooper's main research interest is the construction of gender roles in religious communities in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and the role of gender ideals in religious conflict (e.g. pagan-Christian) during that period.

She pursues both theoretical work (especially sociolinguistic, sociological and anthropological approaches) and empirical work (expanding the evidentiary base of our knowledge of women's roles by identifying and bringing into the common domain little or unknown sources from Latin manuscripts and early printed books).

Dr. Cooper is also director of the inter-departmental Centre for Late Antiquity in the Faculty of Arts, which brings together classicists, historians, archaeologists and social theorists from across Britain, Europe and North America to discuss the problems of identity and social change in Late Antiquity.

Current research projects:

Her present work is devoted mainly to two projects. The first, a collaborative project under her direction, the British Academy-sponsored Roman Martyrs Project, seeks to provide a guide to one of the most significant genres of early medieval religious literature, the (quasi-fictional) romances recording the legends of the martyrs of the city of Rome. The second, a single-author monograph, is a study of the theme of martyrdom as a device for spiritual self-understanding among lay women in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Research Career:

Dr. Cooper gained the doctorate at the interdisciplinary Program in the Ancient World, Princeton University, with the thesis Concord and Martyrdom: Gender, Community, and the Uses of Christian Perfection in Late Antiquity (1993). Her 1996 The Virgin and the Bride developed her notion of the rhetorical economy of gender as a heuristic tool for understanding religious change in late antiquity.

Research Grants:

• British Academy Major Research Grant, 1996-99, The Roman Martyrs Project;
• British Academy Research Leave Award, 1998-99;
• Research and Graduate Support Unit (University of Manchester) Research Grant, 1997-98, Roman Nobles in the Age of Theoderic and Justinian;
• Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1991-92;
• Irene Rosenzweig Fellow in Classical Studies, American Academy in Rome, 1990-91;
• Summer Fellow in Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, 1990 and 1998.