UC Berkeley History Professor Susanna Elm has long been thinking about how to understand the later Roman empire. Her research explores pressing themes that range from the rise of autocratic systems to the economy of slavery. She also examines displays of masculinity in the late Roman Empire and the ways ancient medical practices inform contemporary hospital design, among a broad range of other subjects.
Beyond her individual research, Elm has also been working with her late antique colleagues across UC campuses to reframe the Eurocentric nature of the classics curriculum. One way they're attempting to broaden that lens is by placing California into a more direct dialogue with the late ancient world and its religious and cultural diversity.
Professor Elm recently spoke to Berkeley Social Sciences about her current research and forthcoming books. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Can you tell us about your background and what brought you to UC Berkeley?
Susanna Elm: I’m originally from Germany, and I went to Oxford to study ancient history and classics. In my last year of finishing my dissertation, I spent time at a Harvard research institution. Afterwards, I worked for JP Morgan, where I was trained to become a banker. I then applied to and had the immense fortune of being accepted for a position at UC Berkeley.
I’d never been to an American university before, so it was intimidating. At the time, and in particular in the German academic system, it also wasn’t easy to become a professor in the history of Rome as a woman. Now, we’re in a new world with many more women teaching the Roman empire – although unfortunately, things haven’t changed quite as much as one would've hoped.
I teach and research the late Roman Empire because that is the time when that empire became Christian. I was drawn to that period because, being German, I wanted to know what institutional and communal frameworks were able to resist the rise of autocratic systems. I found that not many could, but systems with a countervailing worldview combined with an institutional base appeared to help. In that context, certain forms of Christianity were sucessful. I wanted to understand why those forms were successful, but not other forms of Christianity (as an example of an institution with staying power). Those questions are an ongoing theme across much of my research.
Can you tell us more about your current research?
Susanna Elm: Ohio State University Professor Kristina Sessa, a Cal alumna, and I are about to publish an edited volume with Cambridge University called “War and Community in Late Antiquity,” which explores the effect of war on all levels of late Roman society. It collects a number of really interesting contributions.
My latest book, which is coming out through the UC Press in November, is called “The Importance of Being Gorgeous.” It focuses on gender, especially concepts of masculinity and their display, and Christian imperial rule. Using the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great and his sons as a model, I explore beauty and fashion as representations of the divine, which, despite being Christian, is what the Roman emperor was seen as. I call the masculinity of those emperors “queer” in the sense that it’s a very fluid, expansive and capacious form of divinity.
My current project focuses on Late Roman Africa and aspects of enslavement, which will be the main theme of a book tentatively entitled “Augustine the Economist: Slavery, Taxation, and Original Sin.”
You've explored the idea of developing a theology of economics. What does that look like when applied to ancient societies?
Susanna Elm: The theology of economics is the principal point of a new project that draws on research I’ve done for over 15 years: the idea that Augustine of Hippo not only created a theology of economics, but also used it as a foundation for his theological thinking. For example, in one paper I already published, called “Sold to Sin,” I show how Augustine uses late Roman taxation systems to support his novel and hotly contested idea that all human beings are born enslaved to sin.
That idea has become known as “original sin,” with "original" meaning “from the beginning.” It has remained very controversial because it seemingly contradicts notions of free will and choice. However, Augustine uses the term “original” as it was used in his day. Back then, it referred to a form of taxation that affected people who were born free but were bound to the land. In that sense, they were both free and not free. Unless you know quite bit about late Roman taxation systems – that is, the late Roman economy – it is very hard to understand what Augustine meant when he introduced his ideas of original sin.
Similarly, the word redemption comes from Latin and means repurchasing an enslaved person. So, as you can see, economic language is central to many of the notions that we regard as important to Christianity. Most of those were coined in the later Roman empire by people such as Augustine, the economist.
Can you tell us more about your research on aspects of ancient medicine?
Susanna Elm: Recently, I have not done as much research on ancient medicine as I used to. However, it is clear that medical imagery and ideas as metaphors for social and political life are widespread in our ancient Greek and Latin sources. For example, in those societies, just as you would cauterize a wound, you would occasionally have to “cut out” disruptive people in order to save a community. It’s a horrible system.
One recent paper I did on ancient medicine connected green spaces to built environments that are healing; that paper was written in the context of art supporting well-being. In the ancient world, temple precincts included gardens and baths with outdoor swimming pools as part of medical treatments. Modern research confirms that such spaces do foster healing. They are putting that into practice by adjusting how hospitals are designed. For example, hospitals with more natural light and green space both reduce patient recovery times and improve staff well-being. It isn’t easy to implement, because it costs more to build, but such research is influencing contemporary hospital design.
How has your research shaped the way you approach the classics curriculum at Berkeley?
Susanna Elm: My colleagues across the UC campuses and I are always trying to integrate California into our teaching. We are all aware of the built environment in which we teach. Here in California, some of that environment comes from the painful legacy of the missions. Its classic heritage is also present. For example, we have the Greek Theatre. Berkeley is also seen as the “Athens of the West.”
There is a lot in California today that we can connect to the ancient mediterranean world, good and bad. For example – and I am limiting myself to Christianity, but the same goes for many other forms of religion – because of California’s immense, wonderful diversity, we have lively, active communities of forms of Christianity here that date back to the late ancient world. While these forms are under pressure in the regions where they originated, here they flourish. That too can be reflected in the ways in which we approach late antiquity as a global and regional phenomenon.