Sarah Parkhouse

I am a religious historian, focusing on the ancient Mediterranean and the emergence of Christianity within the Greco-Roman-Egyptian context.

I am currently researching two projects:

1. Coptic Apocrypha, Lived Religion, and the Egyptian Landscape, funded by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship. To find out more about this project see https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/interview-with-dr-sarah-parkhouse/

2. Amphitheatres, Space, and Religious Practices. Focusing on the Carthaginian amphitheatre(s), I am interested in exploring how those who identified as Roman, African, Christian or any combination of the above conceptualised the amphitheatre space and the events held within it, particularly in religious terms. 

I have published and continue to work on gospel literature, canonical and non-canonical, gender, papyrology, and martyrdom. Past research projects have focused on the diversity of literature within early Christianity, and I have published on the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of John, the First Apocalypse of James, the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla. I have two forthcoming articles on the Pistis Sophia.

My more general research interests are ancient religion, lived religion, place and landscape, objects, practices, ritual, magic, and comparative religion.

Before starting the British Academy fellowship, I was a research fellow at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne (2017-2020), and held a short-term fellowship at the Warburg Institute, London. I completed a PhD at the University of Durham in 2017, which was funded by the AHRC project “The Fourfold Gospel and Its Rivals” led by Prof. Francis Watson.