Madeleine Duperouzel

Research Topic

'Ornaments in the triclinium?’ Women, Identity, and Agency in Late Antique Rural Mediterranean Landscapes, c.300-600 AD

My thesis research concentrates on synthesising documentary sources with visual and material sources in order to broaden our understanding of the socio-economic and cultural contributions of women to the Late Antique Mediterranean rural countryside. Alongside my use of documentary evidence, I am applying a broad range of approaches, including anthropological, art historical, and archaeological theory, to these rural women, deemed effectively 'invisible' by history until this point. 

Qualifications

I received my MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where I was supervised by Professor Antony Eastmond. My dissertation, for which I was awarded a distinction, explored the 8th-century mosaics of the Church of St. Stephen at Umm ar-Rasas, Jordan. I argued that they needed to be contextualised within the contemporary spatial experience of the Church complex itself, as well as in relation to contemporary Islamic precedents across the Levant. Prior to my MA, I received an MPhil from the University of Oxford in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, supervised by Dr. Phil Booth. My dissertation research was concerned with the portrayal of civic space in the literary works of Procopius and Choricius of Gaza, contrasted with Julian of Ascalon's contemporary urban planning manual. I also received my BA (Hons) in History from the University of Oxford, graduating with a First Class degree.  

Conference Papers

(upcoming): 'Examining Marginal Women in Late Antique and Byzantine Egyptian Papyri, 4th-7th centuries,' at the CHASE Medieval and Early Modern Winter Conference 2025, University of East Anglia, Norwich

‘Mosaics as Microcosmos: Nature and Identity in Christian and Islamic Mosaics of the 7th and 8th century Levant,’ at the 27th International OUBS Graduate Conference 2025: Byzantium and its Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford

Publications 

Silk Roads at the British Museum, for the ICMA Spring Newsletter 2025 (Exhibition Review Article)

I manage and write a fast-growing Substack publication, The Empress of Byzantium, which aims to bring accessible Byzantine and historical scholarship to a broad audience. 

Supervisor: Ine Jacobs and Jas Elsner