Dr Teresa Morgan

Nancy Bissell Turpin Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History

I have been a Fellow and tutor of Oriel since 2000 (though from March 2011-March 2012 I am acting as University Assessor, based in the University Offices in Wellington Square). Having grown up in Oxford, I read Classics at Clare College, Cambridge, gained my doctorate there and held two junior research fellowships, before returning to Oxford in 1998. Sandwiched between my classical studies, I also studied the violin and viola in London and Cologne. Since 2002, I have served as a part-time, non-stipendiary Anglican priest in the parish of Littlemore, and in addition to my academic work I publish poetry and short religious books.

My research focuses on the cultural history of the later ancient Greek world and Roman Empire and the history of early Christianity. In Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (CUP, 1998), I explore the role of education in the expanding, fast-changing, socially and culturally complex worlds of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the early Roman Empire. Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (CUP, 2007) uses proverbs, fables, gnomic sayings and exemplary stories to argue that below the level of philosophical schools, there was a web of remarkably coherent moral ideas in use in the society of the early principate. I am now working on a study of faith in early Christianity.

I teach Greek and Roman history from the eighth century BCE to the fourth century CE. Among my particular interests are theoretical approaches to the writing of history, the history of sex, sexuality and gender, the history of religions, papyrology and all forms of social history.