Natalie Reynoso is a Ph.D. candidate in History of Christianity at Fordham University. Her research examines connections between body, identity, and death in early Christian thought and practice, and seeks to understand representations of death as an embodied transition in late ancient Christian texts. Natalie is currently working on her dissertation titled, “The Volition of Violation: The Precarious Lives and Victorious Deaths of Female Virgins in the Late Antique Syriac Christian Tradition.” This dissertation focuses on the female virgin martyrs in the Persian Martyr Acts (PMA) of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE) and in the late antique Syriac Christian tradition more broadly. It seeks to illuminate why death for these martyrs becomes not only preferable to life, but also the only viable option they have available to them.

Natalie has taught a freshman core course, “Faith and Critical Reason” and “Early Christian Writings” at Fordham University. For the past two years, Natalie has also taught a winter intensive, “Life, Death, and Afterlife,” at Elon University. Together with Matthew Charles, she co-authored an article about pedagogy titled “Teaching in the Wake,” about the urgent need to combat and address complicity with systemic racism in the academy.