Susanna K. Elm (born November 11, 1959) is a German historian and classicist. She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
and
early Christianity
Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...
. She is Associate Editor of the journals '' Church History'' and ''Studies in Late Antiquity'' and is a member of the editorial board for ''
Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
Detmold
Detmold () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with a population of . It was the capital of the small Principality of Lippe from 1468 until 1918 and then of the Free State of Lippe until 1947. Today it is the administrative center of ...
in 1978. Afterwards, she studied Classical Philology and History at Freie Universität Berlin. In 1986, she graduated from
St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...
, where her doctoral thesis, ''The Organisation and Institutions of Female Asceticism in Fourth Century Cappadocia and Egypt'', was supervised by classical historian, John F. Matthews. She then worked as an analyst at Morgan Guaranty Trust for a year before becoming assistant professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1989. In 1994, she became an associate professor and has held a professorship at Berkeley since 2002.
In 2007, Elm was part of a University of California research team that won the American Philological Association (APA) Prize for Scholarly Outreach for creating middle-school course materials on the fall of the Roman Empire.
Her publications include ''Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity'' (Clarendon, 1994/1996); ''Medical Challenges for the New Millennium: An Interdisciplinary Task'' (Kluver, 2001), co-edited with Stefan Willich; and ''Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church (University of California, 2012).'' She has received a
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
, and the
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled ...
.
The book ''Virgins of God'' was a development of her doctoral thesis about female asceticism in early Christianity. Enthusiastic religious women sought virtue by engaging in spiritual marriage or becoming
anchoress
In Christianity, an anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life. While anchorites are ...
es. Elm recounted how the religious hierarchy restrained such practises, condemning some of them as heresy. Doug Lee, writing in ''The Classical Review'', praised the work as a "stimulating exposition which negotiates the complexities of the source material and subject matter with skill and assurance. ...one of the many strengths of the study is E's exploitation of little-known sources such as an anonymous treatise ''On Virginity'' (pp. 34–9 331–6) and Athanasius' ''Letter to the Virgins Who Went to Jerusalem'' (pp. 331–6)."
Her book, ''Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church'' was described by the
* '''Virgins of God': The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity''. 1994. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press
* ''Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome''. 2012. Transformation of the Classical Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press
* (Ed. with Stefan N Willich) ''Quo Vadis Medical Healing: Past Concepts and New Approaches''. 2009. Springer