Dr James Corke-Webster

Dr. James Corke-Webster is a distinguished classicist and historian, specialising in early Christian and late antique history and literature. His storied academic background includes studies at Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester, followed by a Fulbright Scholarship at Berkeley. Before joining King’s in 2017, he held lectureships at Edinburgh and Durham, and has since held Visiting Fellowships in Perth and Siena.

Since 2019 and 2016 respectively, James has been a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Higher Education Authority. He is part of the QAA Advisory Group for Classics and Ancient History and has also served on the Council of the Roman Society (2018–2021). He is a member of the editorial board for the Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies.

He has contributed significantly to educational outreach through media engagements. He has appeared regularly on both the BBC (Radio 4's In Our Time, in episodes on "Early Christian Martyrdom", and “Julian the Apostate”, and The Long View, on geriatric premiers), and Times Radio, as well as in numerous podcasts, including the HistoryHit podcast (“Episode 9: Rome and the Mediterranean”), and the Audible series Hijacked Histories (“Episode 1: Caligula and Nero”).

He has written one book and one edited collection:

• Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) [joint winner of the 2018 University of Oxford Faculty of Classics Conington Prize; winner of the 2020 North American Patristics Society First Book Prize; shortlisted for the 2020 Ecclesiastical History Society Best Book Prize].
• The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Leiden, 2020) [co-edited with C. Gray].

And his articles have been published extensively in esteemed academic journals, most recently:

• 'By Whom Were Early Christians Persecuted?', Past & Present 261.1 (2023), 3–46.
• 'Lactantius and Empire: Political Theology in On the Deaths of the Persecutors', Journal of Late Antiquity 15.2 (2022), 333–366.

Career highlights

• Monograph on Eusebius of Caesarea: His first monograph, "Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History," was critically acclaimed and won multiple prizes both in the UK and internationally.
• Doctoral Supervision: He has supervised / is supervising five fully-funded students, of whom the three who have so far completed are all in academic positions.
• Collaborative research: He has led funded projects on hagiography, late antique biography, Roman governance, Justin of Rome, early Christian interactions with ancient drama and performance, with both scholars at other institutions internationally, and his own doctoral students.
• Curation and impact: He co-curated an exhibition, Letters of Refuge, juxtaposing letters written by contemporary and ancient refugees in the Bush House Arcade (the old BBC World Service).