For a complete list of my publications, please see my CV (link on separate page). This page discusses my publications and current research program.

In January 2016, my book Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century CE was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, Divinations Series. In Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority, I recount how certain late Platonist philosophers organized the spirit world into hierarchies, or “spiritual taxonomies,” positioning themselves as the high priests of the highest gods in the process. By establishing themselves as experts on sacred, ritual, and doctrinal matters, they were able to fortify their authority, prestige, and reputation. The Platonists were not alone in this enterprise, and it brought them into competition with rivals to their new authority: priests of traditional polytheistic religions and gnostics. Members of these rival groups were also involved in identifying and ordering the realm of spirits and in providing the ritual means for dealing with that realm. Using the lens of spiritual taxonomy to look at these various groups in tandem, I demonstrate that Platonist philosophers, Christian and non-Christian priests, and gnostics were more interconnected socially, educationally, and intellectually than previously recognized.

In 2021 my second monograph, Sosipatra of Pergamum: Philosopher and Oracle, was published by Oxford University Press’s Women in Antiquity series. All we know about Sosipatra is contained in a brief description of her life and teaching career in Eunapius’ Lives of the Sophists.  In the book, I contextualize what details we have of her life, including the more fantastic elements of her story, at the same time as I pay attention to the way in which Eunapius uses her gender for his own rhetorical purposes. You can hear a podcast episode about the book on the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast here.

In June 2023, my third book, co-authored with Kristi Upson-Saia (Occidental College) and Jared Secord (University of Calgary), was published with University of California Press (submission March 2021): Medicine, Health, and Healing in the Ancient Mediterranean (500 BCE – 600 CE): A Sourcebook.

The sourcebook is accompanied by a comprehensive open access instructor’s guide, which can be accessed here.

Currently, I am starting work on a new project focused on plant ontology in the ancient world based on pharmacological, botanical, and alchemical texts. My aim is to trace common ideas about plant being across different kinds of texts and explore how thinking about plants intersected with thinking about other kinds of being in antiquity.