Churches

Ten years ago this month, I submitted my dissertation, Church, Society, and the Sacred in Early Christian Greece, for final approval at Ohio State and became Dr. Bill Caraher. A year later, I was lucky enough to become Visiting Assistant Professor Bill Caraher and a year after that Assistant Professor Bill Caraher. And finally, last… Read More →

I know I’m a few weeks late on this, but I heard that Chinua Achebe died on March 21st. His greatest novel, Things Fall Apart, inspired my dissertation research. As most readers of this blog know, I wrote my dissertation (defended 10 years ago!) on Early Christian basilicas in Central and Southern Greece. In Achebe’s… Read More →

I spent part of the weekend finishing up Kristina Sessa brilliant new book on the formation of Papal authority in Late Antique Italy: K. Sessa, The Formation of Papal Authority in Late Antique Italy: Roman Bishops and the Domestic Sphere. (Cambridge 2012). As readers of this blog know, I have been fascinated with authority for… Read More →

I spent a little time over the last few days reading the most recent volume of the Journal of Early Christian Studies which was a volume length consideration of Everett Ferguson’s massive, recent book Baptism in the Early Church (2009). Robin Jensen (Grand Forks native, I must add) contributed a lengthy article titled: “Material and… Read More →

Yesterday I received an handwritten letter from an older woman who lives in California. She grew up in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. This fall, she returned to town to revisit some of her past, particularly, (as her letter says) the happy times. On her itinerary was the Grand Forks First Church of God where her… Read More →

This springs Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium is titled Byzantine Survey Archaeology: Reflections and Approaches. The symposium will feature speakers covering a range of topics central to discussions about intensive pedestrian survey archaeology in a Byzantine context. My paper is among the last of the symposium and in a session called “Reading the Data/Reading the Future”.… Read More →

I’ve spent the last week or so perusing M. Veikou’s very new book on Byzantine Epirus (Leiden 2012). It’s a monumental tome with over 300 pages of analysis and 300 more of figures, catalogues, and a site inventory. I’ve commented on Veikou’s work on this blog before so I was pretty excited to get my… Read More →

This month, Ann Marie Yasin published an important reconsideration of the martyria of Salona in the Journal of Early Christian Studies (20 (2012), 59-112; pdf here?). Martyria are buildings thought to be dedicated to particular Early Christian martyrs and the veneration of their remains. Scholars have long associated the centrally planned martyrium with some of… Read More →