Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (sfj@ou.edu)

Degrees

• 2005: D.Phil. in Classics, University of Oxford

• 2001: M.Phil. in Classics, University of Oxford

• 1999: B.A. in Classics, Vanderbilt University (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa)

Teaching Appointments

• 2021 – present: Chair, Department of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma

• 2020: Interim Chair, Department of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma

• 2018 – present: Joseph F. Paxton Presidential Professor, University of Oklahoma

• 2017 – present: Associate Professor of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma

• 2015 – 2017: Assistant Professor of Classics and Letters, University of Oklahoma

• 2011 – 2015: Dumbarton Oaks Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Greek, Georgetown University

• 2007 – 2009: Assistant Professor of Classics, Washington and Lee University

• 2006 – 2007: Visiting Lecturer in Classics, Harvard University

Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

• 2018–2019: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

• 2016: Junior Faculty Fellowship, University of Oklahoma

• 2011 – 2015: Dumbarton Oaks Teaching Fellowship

• 2010 – 2011: Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress

• 2009 – 2010: Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Byzantine Studies

• 2009: Lenfest Grant for Research, Washington and Lee University

• 2008: Glenn Grant for Research, Washington and Lee University

• 2006–2007: William F. Milton Fund Research Grant, Harvard University

• 2004 – 2007: Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows

• 1999–2000: Mellon Fellowship for Graduate Study

Other Appointments and Positions

• 2012 – present: Co-creator and co-editor of the Digital Humanities project “syri.ac — An annotated bibliography of Syriac resources online” (with Dr. Jack Tannous of Princeton University).

• 2012 – present: Academic advisor, vHMML; an online environment for manuscript studies at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library

• 2016: Instructor in Syriac Language, inaugural Dumbarton Oaks Summer School in Syriac Language and Paleography, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (July, 2016)

• 2016: Co-symposiarch, “Worlds of Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium (with Dr. Elizabeth Bolman of Temple University and Dr. Jack Tannous of Princeton University)

• 2013 – 2015: Treasurer, Byzantine Studies Association of North America

• 2011 – 2015: Governing Board, Byzantine Studies Association of North America

• 2010 – 2015: Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Early Christianity, Catholic University of America

• 2008 – 2015: Editorial Board for Publications, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C.

BookS

Jacob of Sarug’s Homily on the Sinful Woman

Translator

Texts from Christian Late Antiquity, Vol. 33

Gorgias Press, 2013

Review: Hugoye (Forness)

Articles

• “The Fictionality of Literary History in Syriac: Thomas of Marga and ‘Abdisho‘ Bar Brika.” In Fictionality in Late Antique Hagiography, edited by Julie Van Pelt and Koen den Temmerman, 69–93. Leiden: Brill, 2023. (pdf)

• “Convergence and Multiplicity in Byzantine Historiography: Literary Trends in Syriac and Greek, Ninth to Twelfth Centuries.” In Historiography and Identity IV: Writing History Across Medieval Eurasia, edited by Walter Pohl and Daniel Mahoney, 157–195. Tunhout: Brepols, 2021. (pdf)

• “Syriac Hymnography before Ephrem.” In Hymns, Homilies, and Hermeneutics in Byzantium, edited by Sarah Gador-Whyte and Andrew Mellas, 193–215. Leiden: Brill, 2021. (pdf)

• “Apostolic Patterns of Thought, From Early Christianity to Early Byzantium.” In The Holy Apostles: A Lost Monument, a Forgotten Project, and the Presentness of the Past, edited by Margaret Mullett and Robert G. Ousterhout, 53–66. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2020. (pdf)

• “Christian Biography.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography, ed. Koen den Temmerman, 73–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. (pdf)

• “Where is Syriac Pilgrimage Literature in Late Antiquity? Exploring the Absence of a Genre.” In Empire and After: Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity, ed. Peter Van Nuffelen, 164–180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. (pdf)

• “Lists, Originality, and Christian Time: Eusebius’ Historiography of Succession.” In Historiography and Identity 1: Ancient and Early Christian Narratives of Community, ed. Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser, 191–217. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. (pdf)

• “Greek.” In A Companion to Late Antique Literature, ed. Scott McGill and Edward Watts, 9–25. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018. (pdf)

• “The Languages of Christianity on the Silk Roads and the Transmission of Mediterranean Culture into Central Asia.” In Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750, ed. Nicola di Cosmo and Michael Maas, 206–219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. (pdf)

• “Biblical Historiography in Verse Exegesis: Jacob of Sarug on Elijah and Elisha.” In Literature, Rhetoric, and Exegesis in Syriac Verse, ed. J. Wickes and K. Heal = Studia Patristica 78.4 (2017) 99–106. (pdf)

• “Christian Apocrypha.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic, ed. William Johnson and Daniel Richter, 669–686. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. (pdf)

• “Silk Road Christians and the Translation of Culture in Tang China.” Studies in Church History 53 (2017) 15–38. (pdf)

• “‘The Stone the Builders Rejected’: Liturgical and Exegetical Irrelevancies in the Piacenza Pilgrim.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (2016) 43–70. (pdf)

• “Nonnus’ Paraphrastic Technique: A Case Study of Self-Recognition in John 9.” In Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis, ed. Domenico Accorinti, 267–288. Leiden: Brill, 2016. (pdf)

• “The Social Presence of Greek in Eastern Christianity, 200–1200 CE.” In Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Greek, 1–122. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. (pdf)

• “Real and Imagined Geography.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, ed. Michael Maas, 394–413. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. (pdf)

• “Travel, Cartography, and Cosmology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, 562–594. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. (pdf)

• “Preface: On the Uniqueness of Late Antiquity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, xi–xxix. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. (pdf)

• “Apostolic Geography: The Origins and Continuity of a Hagiographic Habit.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 64 (2010) 5–25. (pdf)

• “Reviving the Memory of the Apostles: Apocryphal Tradition and Travel Literature in Late Antiquity.” In Revival and Resurgence in Christian History, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory, 1–26. Studies in Church History 44. Woodbridge: Ecclesiastical History Society and Boydell Press, 2008. (pdf)

• “Apocrypha and the Literary Past in Late Antiquity.” In From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron, ed. Hagit Amirav and Bas ter Haar Romeny, 47–66. Leuven: Peeters, 2007. (pdf)

• “Classical Sources for Early Christian Miracle Collections: The Case of the Fifth-Century Life and Miracles of Thecla.” Studia Patristica 39 (2006) 399–407. (Revised as Chapter 4 of The Life and Miracles of Thekla, A Literary Study; see above)

• “Late Antique Narrative Fiction: Apocryphal Acta and the Greek Novel in the Fifth-Century Life and Miracles of Thekla.” In Greek Literature in Late Antiquity (Aldershot, 2006) 189–207. (pdf)

• “The Sinful Woman: A memra by Jacob of Serugh.” In Sobornost/Eastern Churches Review 24.1 (2002) 58–90. (pdf)

Reviews

• Review of Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze, eds., The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine (University of California Press, 2020), in Catholic Historical Review (2023), 175–177.

• Review of Teresa Shawcross and Ida Toth, eds., Reading in the Byzantine Empire and Beyond (Cambridge, 2018), in Speculum 96.4 (2021) 1225–1226. (pdf)

• Review of Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, 2015), in The Classical Review 67.2 (2017) 579–580. (pdf)

• Review of Emily Albu, The Medieval Peutinger Map: Imperial Roman Revival in a German Empire (Cambridge, 2014), in Imago Mundi 68.2 (2016) 242–243. (pdf)

• Review of J.F. Coakley, Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar, Sixth Edition (Oxford, 2013), in Hugoye 18.2. (pdf)

• Review of Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book (Cambridge, MA., 2006), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.06.41. (pdf)

• Review of Bernadette Simon, Nonnos de Panopolis: Les Dionysiaques, Tome XVI, Chants XLIV–XLVI (Paris, 2004) in Classical Review 56.1 (2006) 86–87. (pdf)

• Review of Gianfranco Agosti, Nonno di Panopoli: Parafrasi del Vangelo di San Giovanni, Canto Quinto (Florence, 2003) in Classical Review 55.2 (2005) 474–476. (pdf)

• Review of Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (California, 2000) in Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004) 274–275. (pdf)

• Review of Stephen Davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla (Oxford, 2001), in Heythrop Journal 45 (2004) 80–82. (pdf)

• Review of Liz James, Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium (London, 2001), in Classical Review 53 (2003) 186–187. (pdf)

• Review of Patricia Cox Miller, The Poetry of Thought in Late Antiquity (Aldershot, 2001), in Heythrop Journal 44 (2003) 506–508. (pdf)

• Review of Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (London, 2001), in Journal of Hellenic Studies 122 (2002) 204–205. (pdf)

Encyclopedia and Dictionary Entries

• Entries on “Diatessaron” (pdf), “Divination, Jewish” (pdf), “Ephemerides, historical” (pdf), and “Tatian" (pdf) in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. Roger Bagnall et al. (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

• Entry on “Egeria” (pdf) in The Virgil Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Thomas and Jan Ziolkowski (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

(last updated: October 2021)