Leslie Dossey

About

Leslie Dossey (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1998; B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1992) is an Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago where she teaches courses on the social and cultural history of late antiquity, medieval archaeology, and the Roman Empire.  Dossey’s research focuses extensively on antiquity in North Africa, constructions of gender in late antiquity, and popular religion. She is the author of Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (University of California Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in the leading scholarly publications in European history, including Past & Present and the Journal of Theological Studies.  Dossey is currently engaged in a book project investigating the social and cultural history of sleep in late antiquity.  She was the recipient of the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Classical Studies (2000-01), which enabled her to work at the American Academy in Rome, and a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship (1996/97).    

Dossey is the former Undergraduate Programs Director (2004-09) and has served on the University’s Academic Council and as Faculty Advisor to the Loyola chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society.

Research Interests

Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity, material culture, and Patristic sermons and exegesis.

Courses Taught

HIST 101 The Evolution of Western Ideas and Institutions to the Seventeenth Century

HIST 209 Survey of Islamic History

HIST 300 Barbarians and the Fall of the Roman Empire (current syllabus)

HIST 328 Pompeii and Herculaneum

HIST 523 Seminar: Early Medieval Archaeology

Selected Publications

Sleep in Late Antiquity: A Social and Cultural History(forthcoming).

Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (University of California Press, 2010).

"Watchful Greeks and Lazy Romans: Disciplining Sleep in Late Antiquity." Journal of Early Christian Studies 21.2 (2013): 209-239.

“Sleeping arrangements and private space in late antiquity,”  in D. Brakke, D. Deliyannis and E. Watts (eds.), Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity (Ashgate, 2012).

“The social space of North African asceticism,” in H. Dey - E. Fentress (eds.), Western Monasticism ante litteram: The Spaces of Monastic Observance in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Disciplina monastica. (Turnhout, Brepols, 2011).

“Wife Beating and Manliness in Late Antiquity.” Past & Present(2008): 3-40.