Elizabeth A. Clark
| Elizabeth A. Clark | |
|---|---|
| Title | Professor Emerita |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1988) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Thesis title | The influence of Aristotelian thought on Clement of Alexandria: a study in philosophical transmission |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Early Christianity |
| Institutions | Duke University |
Elizabeth A. Clark (Elizabeth Ann) BA MA PhD is Professor Emerita of the John Carlisle Kilgo Professorship of Religion at Duke University. She is notable for her work in the field of Patristics. Clark expanded the study of early Christianity, pioneering the application of modern theories such as feminist theory, social network theory, and literary criticism to ancient sources.
Clark was born in Port Chester, New York, in 1938. She moved to Delhi, New York, when she was nine. She attended high school there and subsequently described her education in history as 'dismal'. She received a state scholarship and attended Vassar College, where she received her BA in Religion in 1960. Clark was taught History by Mildred Campbell, Mary Martin McLaughlin, and J. B. Ross, and Religion by Jack Glasse. Clark received her MA and PhD from Columbia University in 1962 and 1965. Clark's doctoral thesis was entitled The influence of Aristotelian thought on Clement of Alexandria: a study in philosophical transmission. Her PhD was written under the direction of the faculty of Union Theological Seminary.
As a graduate student, Clark studied Early Christianity alongside philosophy, including a course run by Paul Oskar Kristeller on Hellenic philosophy after Aristotle. Clark described Kristeller as 'the most learned scholar I have ever known'. In 1964, Clark founded the Department of Religion at Mary Washington College (now part of the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at the University of Mary Washington) in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She held the position of the Chair of the Department 1979-82. In 1982, Clark was appointed as a Professor of Religion at Duke University. At the time of her appointment in the College of Arts and Sciences, the faculty numbered around 500; only four women held the rank of full professor.
...
Wikipedia