Ellen Muehlberger

Muehlberger has taught at the University of Michigan since 2009. She was briefly a visiting assistant professor of Religious Studies at DePauw University. Her scholarship focuses on Christianity in late antiquity (300-700 C.E.) and examines specifically "rhetorical and historiographical methods Christians adopted as Christian culture shifted from being in the minority to being dominant in the later Roman Empire." She specializes in topics such as angels, notorious heretics and their deaths (e.g. Arius shows up on the list of people who died on the toilet) and has published on saintly women such as Macrina the Younger. She has also published extensively in the growing field of the study of Syriac Christianity.{{Cite web|title=Ellen Muehlberger CV|url=https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/history-assets/faculty-cvs/Muehlberger%20CV%20July%202020.pdf|website=University of Michigan}}

Muehlberger is a specialist in the late antique religious imagination.{{Cite news|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111223-christmas-angels-evolution-science-history-christianity/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104022645/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111223-christmas-angels-evolution-science-history-christianity/|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 4, 2012|title=Evolution of Angels: From Disembodied Minds to Winged Guardians|date=2011-12-24|access-date=2017-03-12}} Her first book, Angels in Late Ancient Christianity, was published in 2013. A review in Bryn Mawr Classic Review noted that "Muehlberger succeeds in demonstrating that angels were an important source of lively speculation and contestation within fourth and early-fifth century Christian discourse. The book also reveals how discourse on angels can provide an entry into other aspects of Christianity, like conceptualizations of the liturgy."{{Cite journal|last=Cline|first=Rangar H.|date=2013|title=Angels in Late Ancient Christianity|url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013.10.16|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review}} The book has been reviewed in such journals as Journal of Theological Studies,{{Cite journal|last=Arthur|first=Rosemary A.|date=2014-04-01|title=Angels in Late Ancient Christianity. By Ellen Muehlberger.|url=https://academic.oup.com/jts/article/65/1/312/1683558|journal=The Journal of Theological Studies|language=en|volume=65|issue=1|pages=312–314|doi=10.1093/jts/flu031|issn=0022-5185}} the American Historical Review, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, Horizons, and Marginalia Review of Books.

Muehlberger's second book, The moment of Reckoning: Imagined Death and Its Consequences in Late Ancient Christianity, was published in 2019 has also been well received. Another reviewer during a book panel published on Ancient Jew Review,{{Cite web|title=AAR/SBL 2019 Review Panel {{!}} Moment of Reckoning|url=https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2020/3/1/us0qaddlnlqayvejmp07eq0touhyt1|access-date=2021-02-24|website=ANCIENT JEW REVIEW|language=en-US|archive-date=2021-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210130005051/https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2020/3/1/us0qaddlnlqayvejmp07eq0touhyt1|url-status=dead}} remarked, "Muehlberger’s conclusions have significant implications for our research on the machine of narrative and ethics.{{Cite web|title=AAR/SBL 2019 Review Panel {{!}} Reckoning with Death: A Cross-Disciplinary Engagement|url=https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2020/3/31/sbl-2019-review-panel-|access-date=2021-02-24|website=ANCIENT JEW REVIEW|language=en-US}}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Muehlberger has also written numerous scholarly articles and chapters in collected volumes. She has edited [https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/cambridge-edition-of-early-christian-writings/FB1F6DE0BFCCC9CB577BBFC61181D1BB The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings] and sits on the editorial boards of [https://online.ucpress.edu/sla/pages/editorial Studies of Late Antiquity], Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and [https://www.peterlang.com/view/serial/ECCA Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity].

• "The Will of Others: Coercion, Captivity, and Choice in Late Antiquity.” Co-written with Mira Balberg. Studies in Late Antiquity 2.3 (2018): 294-315.
• “The Legend of Arius’s Death: Imagination, Space, and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography.” Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies 277 (2015): 3-29.
• "Simeon and Other Women in Theodoret’s Religious History: Gender in the Representation of Late Ancient Christian Asceticism.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 23 (2015): 583-606.
• "Salvage: Macrina and the Christian Project of Cultural Reclamation.” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 81 (2012): 273-97.
• "Preserving the Divine: αυτο-Prefixed Generative Terms and the Untitled Treatise in the Bruce Codex.” Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011): 311-28.

Muehlberger is an active contributor to public scholarship and has published in online publications such as Marginalia Review of Books,{{cite web|title=Marginalia Review of Books|url=http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/about/contributors/ellen-muehlberger/|access-date=2017-03-10|archive-date=2020-09-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930195629/https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/about/contributors/ellen-muehlberger/|url-status=dead}} where she has written on the "architecture of knowledge" in late antiquity and provided other editorial contributions as well.{{cite web|title=On Authors, Fathers, and Holy Men – By Ellen Muehlberger|url=http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/on-authors-fathers-and-holy-men-by-ellen-muehlberger/|access-date=2017-03-10|archive-date=2017-02-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214210641/http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/on-authors-fathers-and-holy-men-by-ellen-muehlberger/|url-status=dead}} Muehlberger is an active public scholar on Twitter and has been credited as one of the popularizers of the term "doomscrolling."{{cite web |title=Doomscroll / Doomscrolling |url=https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/doomscroll-doomscrolling |website=wordorigins.org |access-date=24 February 2021}}

Muehlberger was a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (2014-2015).{{cite web|url=https://www.acls.org/research/ryskamp.aspx?year=2012&pid=4B65EEAE-6E77-DB11-A735-000C2903E717&id=794|title=Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellows ACLS|access-date=2017-03-10|archive-date=2017-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308114232/https://www.acls.org/research/ryskamp.aspx?year=2012&pid=4B65EEAE-6E77-DB11-A735-000C2903E717&id=794|url-status=dead}} In 2015 she received the Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award at the University of Michigan.{{cite web|title=Class of 1923 Teaching Award University of Michigan|url=https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/faculty-staff/undergraduate-education/awards-for-undergraduate-teaching/class-of-1923-memorial-teaching-award-and-john-dewey-award.html}} She was also awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2016-2017).{{Cite web|date=21 December 2015|title=Grant news fellowships 2015|url=https://www.neh.gov/divisions/research/grant-news/fellowships-2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126094953/https://www.neh.gov/divisions/research/grant-news/fellowships-2015|archive-date=26 January 2017|access-date=18 February 2021}}

• 'Imagining the Moment of Death, with Ellen Muehlberger', Byzantium & Friends Podcast, https://byzantiumandfriends.podbean.com/e/imagining-the-moment-of-death-with-ellen-muehlberger/
• 'On Death and Repentance,' The Distant Pasts Podcast, https://soundcloud.com/university-of-exeter/death-and-repentance/

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Category:Living people

Category:University of Michigan faculty

Category:DePauw University faculty

Category:21st-century American historians

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