Dr. Aleksaner Paradziński
Postdoctoral Fellow (Heinz-Heinen-Fellowship)
Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
October 2024–September 2025
parad@uni-bonn.de
Title of current research project: "Elite Women, their Dependents, and the Systems of Dependencies in the Late Antique Literary Sources"
Academic Profile
The main aim of the project is to mine the literature on elite women for information on their dependents in Late Antiquity and explore the dynamics of systems of asymmetrical dependencies in which they participated. The collected evidence will be turned into a dataset that is intended for the study of salient differences and similarities within those systems connected to the gender of powerful actors. Were relationships between Christian literati-clients, the likes of Jerome of Stridon, and patronesses in Rome at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries different than those with male patrons? Did certain types of dependencies in which women were the dominating actors, such as maintaining a warrior retinue, influence and reshape relationships in which they were expected to be the dependent, such as marriage? If and how were servants and slaves of powerful women impacted by societal limitations to which their mistresses were subjected? While overcoming the challenges of anonymity and 'invisibility' of dependents that are inherent to this kind of study, this project will seek to address these questions and explore the three themes that emerge from a preliminary survey of the source material: the differences in social limitations between the position of the dependents of women and men, triadic relations or chain asymmetrical dependencies, and "excluding inclusion" as a tool of a dependent.
2023–2024
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Exeter, employed for the project Connecting Late Antiquities, managed by Prof. Richard Flower
2019–2022
Assistant Professor, Ancient Department, Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, employed as a postdoc for the project The Missing Link. The Lost Latin Historiography of the Later Roman Empire (3rd–5th century), managed by Prof. Paweł Janiszewski
2013–2019
Doctor of Philosophy in History, Faculty of History University of Oxford, thesis title: Senators, Bishops, Decuriones and Barbarians, in the 4th to 5th Centuries, under the supervision of Prof. Bryan Ward-Perkins
2011–2013
MA in History, Institute of History, University of Warsaw, thesis title: Majątki stanu senatorskiego i ich obraz w literaturze w latach 364–410 [Properties of the Senatorial Order and their image in the literature in the years 364–410], under the supervision of Prof. Adam Ziółkowski
2008–2011
BA in History, Institute of History, University of Warsaw, thesis title: Stosunki rzymsko perskie 296–337 [Romano-persian diplomatic relations, A.D. 296–337], under the supervision of Prof. Adam Ziółkowski
- Forthcoming. "Romano-Barbarian Amicitia: Shaping the Discourse and Sustaining Political and Social Networks." In Palamedes.
- Forthcoming. "Sulpicius Alexander and the Soldier Historians of the Later Roman Empire." In Journal of Ancient History.
- 2019. "Inclusion and Exclusion of 'Barbarians' in the Roman Elites of the Fifth Century: The Case of Aspar’s Family." In Inclusion and Exclusion in Mediterranean Christianities, 400–800, edited by Yaniv Fox and Erica Buchberger, 259–278. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 25. Turnhout.
- 2015. "The Usurpation of Silvanus and Ethnic Identity." In ΣΧΟΛΗ: Cupido dominandi – Lust for Power, Power over Lust, edited by Dominika Lewandowska, Kamila Marciniak, and Hanna Rajfura, 73–94. Warszawa.