Ashley Purpura

Promoted to Associate Professor
School of Interdisciplinary Studies
apurpur@purdue.edu

Ashley Purpura completed a bachelor’s degree in Religion and International Affairs at Florida State University, an MTS at Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in the History of Christianity at Fordham University. She researches the history of Orthodox Christian thought in its Byzantine tradition and investigates how historical religious practices and ways of thinking shape power structures and complex identities for past and present religious communities.

Purpura has published articles on religious authority and conceptions of gender. Her first book, “God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium,” examines the development and maintenance of “hierarchy” as a theological concept. With current projects, she focuses on Orthodox Christian idealizations and interpretations of gender and the formation of religious identity in ritual contexts.