Christine Shepardson

Associate Professor
515 McClung Tower
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0450

Phone: 865-974-2181
Email: cshepard@utk.edu

Project Director and Seminar Chair, Faculty Research Seminar on Late Antiquity

See Also: Curriculum Vitae

Tina Shepardson studies the history of Early Christianity, particularly the Mediterranean world in the period of late antiquity. Her first book, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem's Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria, examines Ephrem, a fourth-century church leader from Syria, and the role his sharp anti-Jewish language played in an intra-Christian theological struggle. She is currently writing a new book about how the politics of controlling contested places in and around the city of Antioch helped shape the theological debates of the fourth and fifth centuries. In teaching about the history of early Christianity, she demonstrates the effects that early Christian arguments continue to have in the modern world, as well as the rich diversity of early Christian history. She is the winner of a 2009-2010 ACLS Fellowship, a 2008 NEH Summer Stipend, and a 2008 Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society. Each year she presents her work at academic conferences and also around the Knoxville area. When not researching, writing, and teaching, she may be found hiking in the Smokies or canoeing in the Canadian arctic.

• Ph.D. in Early Christianity, Duke University, Graduate Program in Religion, 2003
• Graduate Certificate, Program in Women's Studies, Duke University, 1998
• M.T.S. in Biblical Studies, Boston University School of Theology, 1996
• B.A. in Religion and English, Swarthmore College, 1994