Darlene Brooks Hedstrom

Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies

Departments/Programs

Classical Studies
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Degrees

Miami University, Ph.D.
Wheaton College, M.A.
Wheaton College, B.A.

Expertise

Archaeology and history of ancient and late antique Christianity. Material culture and religions of eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Monasticism in Eastern Mediterranean World. Foodways in Late Antiquity

Profile

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, Associate Professor, is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Chair in Christian Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Classical Studies. Brooks Hedstrom is an archaeologist and historian of ancient and early Byzantine Christianity of the eastern Mediterranean world (circa 300-1000 CE) with a specialization in the archaeology and history of monasticism. She is Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project-North, in Wadi Natrun, Egypt, and a speaker for the Archaeological Institute of America. Her work combines texts, material culture, and theory to examine the history of monastic makers of late antique objects and spaces.

Courses Taught

CLAS	155a	Mummies, Myths, and Monuments of Ancient Egypt
CLAS	200a	Proseminar
NEJS	129b	Debating Jesus: Diverse Beliefs in the Early Church
NEJS	130b	Denial and Desires: Gender and Sexuality in Early Christianity

Awards and Honors

Best Popular Book on Archaeology for The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt An Archaeological Reconstruction (Cambridge 2017) (2019)

Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Fellow for "Feeding Asceticism: The Archaeology of Byzantine Monastic Kitchens" (2015)

Scholarship

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "The Materiality of Monasticism: The Natural, Cultural, and Anthropogenic Landscape of Byzantine Egypt." From the Human Body to the Universe—Spatialities of Byzantine Culture. Ed. Ingela Nilsson and Myrto Veikou. Leiden: Brill, 2021 (forthcoming)

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Three Monks and a House: The Archaeology of Monastic Householding in Late Antique Egypt." Households in Context: Dwelling in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Ed. Caitlín E. Barrett and Jennifer Carrington. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2021 (forthcoming)

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene and Hendrik Dey. "The Archaeology of the Earliest Monasteries." Cambridge History of Medieval Western Monasticism. Ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 73-96.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Monastic Settlements as Monastic Domestic Households." The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism. Ed. Bernice Kaczynski. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 185-205.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt." The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology. Ed. David K. Pettegrew, William R. Caraher, and Thomas W. Davis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 665–684.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "The Archaeology of Early Monastic Communities." The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology. Ed. David K. Pettegrew, William R. Caraher, and Thomas W. Davis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 147–165.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Baking Bread and Salting Fish: The Archaeology of Egyptian Monastic Kitchens and Ascetic Taste." Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium. Ed. Margaret Mullett and Susan Ashbrook Harvey. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2017. 183–206.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Reconsidering the Emerging Monastic Desertscape." Copts Revisited: Pharaohs, Caliphs and iPods. Theories, Methods and Topics in Coptic Studies. Ed. Nelly van Doorn. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2017. 205–217.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt: An Archaeological Reconstruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene co-author Elizabeth S. Bolman. "The White Monastery Federation Project: Survey and Mapping at the Monastery of Apa Shenoute (Dayr al-Anba Shinuda), Sohag, 2005-2007." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 65. 2013 (2013): 333-364.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Models of Seeing and Reading Monastic Archaeology." Cistercian Studies Quarterly 48. 3 (2013): 299-315.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene and Gillian Pyke. "The Afterlife of Sherds: Architectural Reuse Strategies at the Monastery of John the Little, Wadi Natrun." Functional Aspects of Egyptian Ceramics within their Archaeological Context. First ed. Ed. Bettina Bader and Mary Ownby. Leuven: Peeters, 2012. 307-326.

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene. "Treading on Antiquity: Anglo-American Missionaries and the Religious Landscape of Nineteenth-Century Coptic Egypt." Material Religion 8. 2 (2012): 128-153.