Professor Lucy Grig (BA, MA, PhD)

Professor of the History of Late Antiquity

Biography

Background

I was an undergraduate in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where my studies took me from classical Athens to modern Europe. I then took my MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York but decided to return to Cambridge for my PhD, this time in the Classics Faculty, finding my natural home in the world of Late Antiquity. I taught at the University of Reading from 2000-1 and from 2002-4, while I was lucky enough to be Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome in 2001-2. I came to Edinburgh as a Lecturer in 2004 and have since enjoyed teaching ancient history at all levels, with occasional forays into other areas of Classics. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2014 and Professor in 2024.  I have three children who get dragged around as many ancient sites as I can manage, in all weathers.

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am Area Editor for Late Antiquity of the  Oxford Classical Dictionary and a member of editorial board of the journal 'Early Medieval Europe'.

I am also a member of the Standing Committee member of the Council of UK Classics Departments

Undergraduate teaching

  • Roman World 1a
  • Roman World 1b
  • Transformation of the Roman World, ca. 200-800:  Towards Byzantium and the Early Medieval West
  • Ancient History 2b: Themes and Theories in Ancient History
  • Ancient Popular Culture (Honours) 
  • The World of St Augustine (Honours)
  • Examining Classics: past present and future (Honours)

Postgraduate teaching

  • A Topic in Late Antique and Byzantine History: Cultural History of the Latin West
  • Late Antique Visual Culture
  • Voluntary Death and Martyrdom in the Ancient World

 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Name - Degree - Thesis topic - Supervision type

Bersani, Beatrice - PhD - The colours of God: Polychromatic imagery for the divine in late antique Latin poetry. - Secondary

Lazzoni, Clara - PhD - Seeing texts, reading images: approach to late antique concrete poetry based on Optatian. - Secondary 

Past PhD students supervised

Name - Degree - Thesis topic - Supervision type

Cleary, Nicole - PhD - Jerome on the attack - Joint  - awarded 2015

Imrie, Alex - MScR - Roman Numismatics - Secondary - awarded 2011

Imrie, Alex - PhD - Caracalla and the Constitutio Antoniniana  - Secondary - awarded 2015

Ingle, Gabriela - PhD - The significance of dining in late Roman and early Christian funerary rites and tomb decoration - Primary - 2017

John, Alison - PhD- Learning and power: a cultural history of education in Late Antique Gaul - Secondary - awarded 2018

Lauritsen, Taylor - PhD - Doors and Domestic Space at Pompeii - Secondary - awarded 2012

Penn, Tim - PhD - Beyond the grace: the funerary landscapes of the Italian peninsula, ca. 1-700 CE - Secondary - 2022

Sandon, Tatjana - PhD - The freedwoman in the Roman world: the evidence of the Latin inscriptions - Secondary - awarded 2017

Smith, Natalie - PhD  - Production of Christian sacred space in fourth-century Jerusalem - Secondary  - awarded 2022

Thorp, Thaddeus - Earning the fruits of honour: a study of social mobility among the freeborn sub-elite in the Roman West - Secondary - awarded 2022

Thostenson, Kathryn -  PhD - Sexed, not sexual bodies: Tertullian's Anthropology of Sexual Difference - Primary - awarded 2019

Tsartsidis, Thomas - PhD - Prudentius Peristephanon 10  - Secondary - awarded 2017

Washington, Belinda - PhD - Empresses in the ate Roman world - Secondary - awarded 2016

Research summary

Places: 

  • Europe
  • Mediterranean
  • Near East

Themes: 

  • Ancient Civilisations
  • Culture
  • Gender
  • Language & Literature
  • Material Culture
  • Religion
  • Society

Periods: 

  • Antiquity
  • Medieval

Research interests

I am a historian of the society, culture and religion of  the Roman world, with a particular focus on Late Antiquity. My research takes in both literary and material culture from across the Mediterranean world (for instance I have published on poetry and glassware, sermons and paintings).

Current research interests

In recent years I have worked substantially on popular culture in the ancient world, an exciting but massively understudied subject. This project is twofold: firstly looking at the methodological problem of locating a putative ‘popular culture’ in the ancient world and secondly looking at the transformation of this popular culture in Late Antiquity, as part of the transformation of the classial world. Publications arising from this project are 1) the edited volume, ‘Popular Culture in the Ancient World’ (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which looks at the subject from a diverse range of approaches and takes in an eclectic selection of ancient sources. 2) the monograph 'Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400-550' (Cambridge University Press, 2024), part-funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship in 2016-17), which looks at the transformation of popular culture in its social and economic contexta with a particular focus on the city of Arles and its surrounding region. I am continuing to work on projects related to popular culture in Late Antiquity, as well as developing a new broader project on subaltern agency in ancient and late ancient religion, as well as working on a longstanding interest in the literary culture of the period, with a particular focus on the controversialist, saint and self-publicist, Jerome. I am one of the co directors of the Edinburgh Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies.

Past research interests

Previous work has focused on a number of themes, with reference to both literary and material and visual culture, including - urban history, particularly that of the city of Rome in Late Antiquity. - the cult of the saints, hagiography and the history of early and late ancient Christianity more widely

Knowledge exchange

I have appeared on 'In Our Time' on BBC Radio 4. on programmes discussing Aesop and the emperor Constantine. I have also appeared on 'Free Thinking' on BBC Radio 3 discussing donkeys (to work out the connection it helps to read Aesop's Fables).

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

I am currently working on popular culture in the ancient world, an exciting but massively understudied subject. This project is twofold. Firstly it looks at the methodological problem of locating a putative ‘popular culture’ in the ancient world. Secondly it asks if Late Antiquity saw a development of a new popular culture and investigates the role of Christianity in this process.

I have published an edited volume, ‘Popular Culture in the Ancient World’  (with Cambridge University Press) in 2017, which looks at the subject from a diverse range of approaches and taking in an eclectic selection of ancient sources. The second ( which was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship) is ongoing,  entitled ‘Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400-550 ’, it looks at the transformation of popular culture in its social and economic context with a particular focus on the city of Arles and its surrounding region.

Research projects

Watch a short video of Dr Grig speaking about her research interests - Media Hopper

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a full list, including details of other publication types (e.g. reviews), please see the Edinburgh Research Explorer page for Dr Lucy Grig.

Books - Authored

Grig, L. (2024) Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400-550. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grig, L. (2004) Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.

Books - Edited

Grig, L. (ed.) (2016) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139871402

Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) (2012) Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press

Articles

Grig, L. (2018) Caesarius of Arles and the campaign against popular culture in late antiquity. Early Medieval Europe, 26(1), pp. 61-81DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12248

Grig, L. (2013) Cities in the ‘long’ Late Antiquity, 2000–2012 – a survey essay. Urban History, 40(3), pp. 554 - 566DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000369

Grig, L. (2012) Deconstructing the symbolic city: Jerome as guide to late antique Rome. Papers of the British School at Rome, 80, pp. 125-143DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068246212000074

Grig, L. (2004) Portraits, Pontiffs and the Christianization of Fourth-Century Rome. Papers of the British School at Rome, 72, pp. 203-230

Grig, L. (2002) Torture and Truth in Late Antique Martyrology. Early Medieval Europe, 11, pp. 321-336DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-9462.2002.00114.x

Chapters

Grig, L. (2018) Life and death in Late Antiquity: Religious rituals and popular culture. In: Lössl, J. and J. Nicholas, B. (eds.) A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 455-473

Grig, L. (2017) 'A Popular Culture'. In: Césaire d'Arles et les cinq continents. Venelles: Assocation aux Sources de la Provence, pp. 180-185

Grig, L. (2017) Cultural capital and Christianization: The metrical inscriptions of Late Antique Rome. In: Bolle, K., Machado, C. and Witschel, C. (eds.) The Epigraphic Cultures of Late Antiquity. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 427-447

Grig, L. (2017) Introduction: Approaching popular culture in the ancient world. In: Grig, L. (ed.) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-36

Grig, L. (2016) Interpreting the Kalends of January: A case study for late antique popular culture?. In: Grig, L. (ed.) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 237-256

Grig, L. (2013) The Bible in popular and non-literary culture. In: Joachim, S. and Carleton Paget, J. (eds.) The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to 600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Grig, L. (2013) Approaching popular culture: Singing in the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. In: Studia Patristica: Vol. LXIX - Papers presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011., pp. 197-204

Grig, L. (2012) Competing Capitals, Competing Representations: Late antique cityscapes in words and pictures. In: Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 31-52

Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (2012) Introduction: From Rome to Constantinople. In: Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) Two Romes. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-30

Grig, L. (2009) Imagining the Capitolium in Late Antiquity. In: Lenski, N. and Cain, A. (eds.) The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity. Ashgate Publishing, pp. 279-291

Grig, L. (2006) Throwing parties for the poor: poverty and splendour in the late antique church. In: Margaret Atkins, R. (ed.) Poverty in the Roman World. Cambridge University Press, pp. 145-161

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