Virginia Burrus

Virginia Burrus is an author and scholar on gender and sexuality in late antiquity who is currently The Bishop W. Earl Ledden Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Syracuse University.

Virginia attended Yale University where she gained a BA in Classical Civilization in 1981. She then went on to gain an MA (1984) and PhD (1991) in the History of Christianity from Berkeley.

She is currently The Bishop W. Earl Ledden Professor of Religion, Syracuse University, a position she has held since 2013. Prior to joining Syracuse University, Burrus held a position at Drew University from 1991 to 2013. In the past she was president of the North American Patristics Society, associate editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies, and co-editor of the University of Pennsylvania Press series "Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion." She has a wide range of interests including gender, sexuality, martyrdom and asceticism within late antiquity, and specializes in the literary and cultural history of Christianity.

• The Life of Saint Helia: Critical Edition, Translation, Introduction, and Commentary. Early Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. (Co-author with Marco Conti)
• Seducing Augustine: Bodies, Desires, Confessions. NY: Fordham University Press, 2010. (Co-author with Mark Jordan and Karmen MacKendrick)
• Saving Shame: Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
• Toward a Theology of Eros. NY: Fordham University Press, 2006. (Co-editor with Catherine Keller)
• Late Ancient Christianity: A People’s History of Christianity, Volume 2. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. (Editor)
• The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
• “Begotten, Not Made”: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity. Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
• The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy. Transformation of the Classical Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
• Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of Apocryphal Acts. Women in Religion. Lewiston & Queenston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987.