Darlene Brooks Hedstrom

Darlene Brooks HedstromMyra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies

Degrees

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

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. 

Selected Publications

Professor Brooks Hedstrom's most recent book, The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt An Archaeological Reconstruction, is the winner of the Biblical Archaeology Society's Best Popular Book in Archaeology for 2019.  She is currently working on an excavation monograph for a monastic residence at the Monastery of John the Little in Wadi Natrun, Egypt. Brooks Hedstrom was a fellow in Byzantine Studies at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks for a book project entitled "Feeding Asceticism in Byzantine Monasteries: The Archaeology of Monastic Cooking." In addition, she publishes extensively on late antique Christian archaeology, monasticism, and the history of archaeology. For more information: https://brandeis.academia.edu/DarleneBrooksHedstrom