2026-27 Postdoctoral Fellow
About
Brittany Joyce is a historian of the later Roman empire whose work focuses on slavery and religion. Her work examines the roles enslaved people held in ancient households, and the rhetoric religious leaders used regarding those roles, bridging metaphor and daily life. She is interested in how early Christians reshaped existing norms to their concerns, using enslaved people to support their lifestyles. She received her PhD in Ancient History from the University of Michigan in 2026.
As the EIHS Postdoctoral Fellow, Joyce will prepare a book manuscript based on her PhD dissertation, tentatively titled “Controlling Behavior: Slavery, Religion, and the Household in Late Antiquity.” She will specifically expand research on freed people’s continued relationships with their former enslavers post manumission.
