Marta Szada
A late antique historian and a classicist studying the later Roman empire and post-Roman kingdoms in the West with a special focus on Christian literature and the history of the Church.
Forthcoming and recent publications
Prosopography in the Digital World: Prospects and Limitations
Chapter in Brill’s Companion to Roman Prosopography, eds. M. Horster, R. Flower, F. Hurlet, and R. Mathisen, Brill 2026 (available online).
Święty Augustyn, Listy. Tom 2 (Listy 81-131)
Red. M. Szada, tł. S. Adamiak, P. Nehring, R. Toczko, M. Szada Toruń, Wydawnictwo UMK 2025
Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2024
about me
I am a late antique historian and a classicist working in the Department of Classics at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In 2020, I defended my doctoral thesis at the University of Warsaw on religious conversions between Nicene („Catholic”) and Homoian („Arian”) Christianity in the Roman successor kingdoms in the West.
I am interested in intellectual history and book history in the ancient world. Currently, I am realising a new project Networks of Book Circulation and the Making of Reading Communities in Late Antiquity.
Previously, I worked on projects concerned with the cult of saints and hagiographic literature (Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity, http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/) and the history of the clergy in late antiquity (http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/). I published in a number of scholarly journals on the topics concerning Nicene-Homoian controversy, Christianization of the Goths, late antique hagiography and exegesis.
My interests also include the modern printed book with a particular focus on the book collections linked with Prussian academic gymnasia (especially Toruń and Elbląg).
Events
Here you can find the most recent events in which I am involved. For the fuller list see the tab „News and Events”.
‘The Domestic Dimension of Religious Conflict in the Ancient Mediterranean’, University of Durham
My paper: „Books and Readers in Late Antique Christian Households: The Role of Family Reading in Doctrinal Controversies in the Late Roman West”
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds
My paper: „Harming and Harmed: Animal Miracles in Late Antique Hagiography from Gaul and Hispania”
17th Congress of the Fédération internationale des associations d’études classiques, Wrocław
My paper: „‘Barking now and then against God’: Dogs and Pigs in Late 4th- and 5th-Century Polemics Between Nicenes and Arians”
Conflict and Cooperation: Letters, Social Networks and Religious Controversies in Late Antiquity (300-700 AD), Göttingen
My paper: „Late Antique Letters as Tools of Publishing, Transmission, and Critique of Books (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome)”