Sweeney, Christopher 1 Christopher R. Sweeney Department of Theology Fordham University East Fordham Road Bronx, New York 10458 696 Hobart Hill Rd. South Kortright, NY 13842 csweeney13@fordham.edu (914) 522-067 EDUCATION Fordham University PhD in Theology, January 2020 Historical Christianity Dissertation: “Grief and the Cross: Popular Devotion and Passion Piety from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages” Committee: George Demacopoulos (chair), Stephen Shoemaker, and Robert Davis Brown University, Providence RI M.F.A. in Literary Arts, 2012 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY B.F.A. in Poetry, 2009 RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP Books The Ones Who Walked Away: Popular Protest in the Christian Roman Empire and Its Lessons for Today. Beacon Press (under review). Peer Reviewed Articles: “Lamenting ‘With Us’: The Carolingian Cross and the Suffering Savior in Saxon Theology,” The Harvard Theological Review (under review). “Grief in the Interim: Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Patristic Critique of Emotional Suffering,” Journal of Theological Studies (under review). “‘The Wailing of the People’: The Lay Invention of Passion Piety in Late Antique Jerusalem,” Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies (forthcoming, Fall 2019). “Holy Images and Holy Matter: Images in the Performance of Miracles in the Age before Iconoclasm,” Journal of Early Christianity 26.1 (Spring, 2018): 111-38. Sweeney, Christopher 2 Papers Read at Professional Meetings “Potamius of Lisbon's Return to Orthodoxy?: Reconsidering Potamius' Career in Light of New Understandings' of Arian Identity” XVIII International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, August 2019. “Tears for the Cross: Evidence for Passion Piety in the Early Arabic Church,” Ritual and Religion in the Medieval World, Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, New York, NY, March 2019. “Friendship, Discipline, Event: Reconsidering Tensions in the Use of Christianity in Critical Theory,” Theological Kinships The Augustinian Institute, Villanova, PA, February 2019. “War, Displacement, and the Cross: The Saxon Reimagining of the Cross in the Wake of the Saxon Wars,” American Academy of Religion: Mid-Atlantic Region, New Brunswick, NJ, February, 2019. “Psalms of the Passion: The Suffering of Christ and the Good Friday Psalms in Pre-Conquest Jerusalem,” Byzantine Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX October, 2018. “The Rank of the Dead: Patronage, Stoicism, and Grief in Ambrose and Gregory of Nazianzus,” North American Patristic Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, May, 2017. “Theodoret and Messalianism Revisited: Theodoret and the Extreme Ascetics,” Byzantine Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting, Ithaca, October, 2016. “Heroic Torment: Culturally Situating the Suffering Christ in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew,” Forms of Feeling: Navigating the Affective Turn, Conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, March, 2016. “The Holy Men as Healers: Theodoret’s Legitimization of the Holy Men in the Late Antique Medical Field,” Byzantine Studies Association of North America, New York, October 2015. “The Function of the Holy Men in Context: Inscriptions, Eulogiai, and Vitae,” North American Patristic Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, May, 2014. Invited Talks “A New Narrative for the Development of Passion Piety: Lay Devotion and Clerical Opposition,” Inter-University Doctoral Consortium: Annual Medieval Studies Colloquium, Princeton University, April, 2019. “The Folds of the Self: Affect Theory and the Making of an Insubstantial Self,” Theology and Philosophy Annual Symposium, Fordham University, March 2017. Sweeney, Christopher 3 ACADEMIC POSITIONS Fordham University, New York, NY Teaching Fellow (designed and solo-taught courses), 2016-present Fordham University, New York, NY Teaching Assistant, 2015-16 Honors Program, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY Visiting Assistant Lecturer, 2012-14 Park University, FEW Air Force Base, Cheyenne, WY Adjunct Professor, 2012-14 Brown University, Providence, RI Teaching Fellow, 2010-12 Humanities Department, Monroe College, New York, NY Teaching Assistant and Tutor, 2009-10 COURSES TAUGHT Courses Originally Designed and Solo-Taught: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in the Middle Ages, Fordham University (THEO 201) Faith and Critical Reason, Fordham University (THEO 101) Western Civilization from Antiquity to the Early Medieval Period, University of Wyoming (HON 101) Western Civilization from the Middle Ages to the Present, University of Wyoming (HON 102) Introduction to Poetry, Park University, F.E. Warren Airforce Base (LIT 101) Intermediate Poetry, Brown University (LIT 201) Writing for Business, Park University, F.E. Warren Airforce Base (ENG 102) Courses Assisted as Teaching Assistant: Jerusalem: Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Middle Ages (THEO 201, for Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Fordham University) Introduction to the Torah (THEO 201, for Karina Hogan, Fordham University) ACADEMIC SERVICE Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Fordham, New York, NY Graduate Assistant to the Director, 2016-7 Sweeney, Christopher 4 Undergraduate Studies, Fordham, New York, NY Research Grant Review Judge, 2016 Byzantine Studies Association of North America, New York, NY Session Chair, 2015 Theology Department, Fordham University, New York, NY Research Assistant, 2014-5 International Writer’s Project, Brown University, Providence, RI Conference Translator: Translated the poems of Iranian poet Pegah Ahmadi, presenter and International Writing Fellow, 2012 Cornerstone, Brown University, Providence, RI Academic Advisor for student magazine, 2011-12 AWARDS Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Alumni Dissertation Fellowship 2019-2020 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, Fordham University, 2018-19 Jesuit Pedagogy Grant, Fordham University, 2018 Theology Departmental Travel Grant, Fordham University, 2017 Orthodox Christian Studies Fellowship, Fordham University, 2016 & 2017 Professional Development Grant, Fordham University, 2015 & 2016 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship, Fordham University, 2015 Presidential Scholarship with Assistantship, Fordham University, 2014-Present Literary Arts Fellowship, Brown University, 2010-12 Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award, Brown University, 2010 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Georgian Language Intensive, Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University, 2018 Jesuit Pedagogy Seminar, Fordham University, 2018 Intensive Introduction to Christian Arabic, Princeton University, 2015 Intermediate Arabic Intensive, New York University, 2015 Intensive German, Goethe Institute, Berlin, Germany, 2010 PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS The North American Patristics Society Byzantine Studies Association of North America The Hagiography Society Sweeney, Christopher 5 American Academy of Religion LANGUAGES Ancient and Medieval Greek, Latin, Old English, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Syriac Modern French, German, Italian, Spanish