Murdo Homewood

Thesis title: The Imagery of Illness and Healing in Augustine's Sermones ad Populum

Biography

Background

After coming to the University of Glasgow from the outskirts of Edinburgh for a degree in German and Enlish Language, in second year I lit upon Latin as my extra subject, with a happy and deeply misplaced confidence that this would have no consequences. Needless to say, this decision proved an excellent one, and I continued to pursue Latin, and through it the ancient world, alongside my linguistic studies. Throughout my degree I developed a  taste for all things late antique while also working (in a very modest capacity) for projects such as the Historical Thesaurus of English; this burgeoning interest in late antiquity culimated with a dissertation on violence and governance in the early books of The City of God.

I came to Edinburgh for my MSc in 2020, where I completed a dissertation on Diocletian's Palace and late antique imperial building practice, before reverting back to Augustine for my PhD in the department here, starting in 2021 and funded by the HCA School Doctoral Scholarship. My doctoral project, entitled The Imagery of Illness and Healing in Augustine's Sermones ad Populum, allows me to apply my linguistic training (read: lots of spreadsheets) with my interest in early Latin Christianity, homiletics, and ancient medicine.

Qualifications

Classics (PhD); University of Edinburgh, 2025

Classics (MSc), Distinction; University of Edinburgh, 2021

Latin (MA), First Class; University of Glasgow, 2020

Undergraduate teaching

  • Latin 1A and Latin 1B
  • Latin 2A and 2B
  • The Transformation of the Roman World, ca. 300-800: Towards Byzantium and the Early Medieval West
  • Roman World 1B: The Roman Empire
  • The History of Medicine

Postgraduate teaching

  • Elementary Latin 1 and 2

Research summary

Christianity in the later Roman empire; ancient medicine; patristic literature and homiletics; Latin linguistics

Current research interests

My thesis, 'Imagery of Illness and Healing in Augustine's Sermones ad Populum' reads Augustine's representation of illness and healing as a source for the social and cultural history of these subjects in late antique North Africa. Based on the fundamental assumption, bolstered by modern metaphorical theory, that Augustine selects for his imagery sources carry a shared degree of intelligibility and meaning between the preacher and his audience, I seek to demonstrate the ways in which imagery of illness and its lived experience are mutually represented in the Sermones, and moreover the ways in which Augustine uses his representation of illness and healing to direct his audience's attitudes towards illness, and their own behaviours when seeking out cures.

Organiser

Panel Organiser and Chair, ‘Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity’, Classical Association/Classical Association of Scotland Conference, July 2025

Co-organiser with Joseph Dax, PGR and ECR conference 'Care and Community in Late Antiquity, 300 - 800 CE', University of Edinburgh, May 2023

Papers delivered

'Signs on the Body: Visual Components of Illness Imagery in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum', Classical Association/Classical Association of Scotland Conference 2025, as part of the panel ‘Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity’, July 2025 

'Sufferer Agency and Christian Cure in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum', North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting 2025, as part of the panel ‘Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health & Healing in Late Antiquity’, May 2025

'Reading Medical Practice in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum through the image of the Christus medicus',  XIX. International Conference on Patristic Studies, August 2024

(2025), tr., Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, ‘Alaudae, Issue 15’, in L. Morgan and M. Lombardi-Nash (eds) Alaudae, Volume 1 (1889 - 1890), London.

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