Faculty | SIU

Classics

Dr. Freeman specializes in the religious and cultural history of the late antique Mediterranean in Greek-, Syriac-, Latin-, and Coptic-speaking contexts (joint appointment in History). In particular, she focuses on ancient Christianity from the first through seventh centuries. Her interests include ritual and practice, the cult of martyrs and their relics, homiletics and panegyric, ancient rhetoric, and the senses and emotion in religious experience. Her current book project focuses on speeches of praise for Christian martyrs preached by clergy on the martyrs' feast days throughout the Mediterranean and Near East both as a means of cultivating social consensus in Christian communities and as diverse local manifestations of piety toward the martyrs.