Catherine Mary Conybeare (born 1966) is an academic andphilologist and an authority onAugustine of Hippo. She is currently Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities atBryn Mawr College inPennsylvania.[1][2][3]
Conybeare was born in 1966 atBristol in the United Kingdom[4] and was educated atOxford High School (1975–1979),Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School (1979–1982), andThe King's School, Canterbury (1982–1984). She read classics atCorpus Christi College, Oxford (BA, 1985–1989) and did graduate work in Medieval Studies at theUniversity of Toronto (MA, 1991; PhD, 1997) under the supervision ofBrian Stock.[5] From 1996 to 2002 she was at theUniversity of Manchester, including three years as a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History. In 2002, Conybeare moved back across the Atlantic to take up a position atBryn Mawr College, where she was promoted to Full Professor in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies in 2011. She served as Director of the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art at Bryn Mawr College (2006–2014), and was appointed Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities in 2019.[6]
Conybeare's research centres on the Latin literature and culture of late antiquity, and especially on the writings ofAugustine of Hippo.[1] She has been W. John Bennett Distinguished Visiting Scholar at thePontifical Institute and theCentre for Medieval Studies in Toronto,[7] and has also held Visiting Fellowships atKing's College, Cambridge;Corpus Christi College, Oxford;All Souls College, Oxford and theCentre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at theUniversity of Cambridge.[8]
She has been the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships, including from theGuggenheim Foundation,[9] theAmerican Council of Learned Societies[10] and theNational Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).[11] Notably, in 2021-22 she led the ACLS-funded project "Greek Drama/Black Lives", which commissioned a new version ofMedea from the playwrightJames Ijames and staged it in a co-production betweenBryn Mawr College and theCommunity College of Philadelphia.
Conybeare has published widely on such topics as aurality, touch, violence, emotions and the self. She is the author ofThe Routledge Guidebook to Augustine's Confessions (2016);[12]The Laughter of Sarah: Biblical Exegesis, Feminist Theory, and the Concept of Delight (2013), which examines the place of delight in Jewish and Christian interpretative traditions;[13][14]The Irrational Augustine (2006) which charts Augustine's progress from neo-Platonism to incarnational theology in his Cassiciacum dialogues;[15] andPaulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters ofPaulinus of Nola (2000), looking at the formation of spiritual community through early Christian letter collections.[16]
She has edited several collections of essays, including co-editing withSimon GoldhillClassical Philology and Theology: Entanglement, Disavowal, and the Godlike Scholar (2021).[1]
Her bookAugustine the African is a new biography ofAugustine of Hippo which places North Africa at the centre of his life and thought. It will be published by Liveright (US) and Profile (UK) in 2025.
Conybeare is also editor of the series fromCambridge University Press, 'Cultures of Latin', to which she is contributing a volume entitledLatin, Music, and Meaning.
Conybeare has two sons: Gabriel (born 1994) and Hilary (born 2000). She is a keen amateur musician and learns the organ with Parker Kitterman atChrist Church, Philadelphia.
