• Degree: Began Ph.D. program in 2018
• Concentration: Texts and Contexts/ Religions of the Classical and Late Ancient Mediterranean
• Advisor: Dr. Virginia Burrus

Daniel J. Kimmel (they/them) received their B.A. in Literature and Religion from Lebanon Valley College and their M.A. in Literature and Social Justice from Lehigh University. Daniel specializes in the religious traditions of the classical and late ancient Mediterranean, circa 500 BCE to 500 CE, and in historical, textual, and rhetorical methods. Daniel is particularly interested in the mutually formative history of encounters between Greco-Roman cult and philosophical theology (especially Platonisms), early Christianity, and Second Temple and early Rabbinic Judaism. Other specific interests include: the discourse(s) of “magic” (ancient and modern), ancient daemonologies and spiritual taxonomies, and the category of “religion” in pre-modern contexts. Daniel’s language skills include: Latin, Greek, French, and German.

Daniel has been awarded the North American Patristics Society Graduate Student Paper Prize for a paper on the ancient genealogy of “religion” and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes, presented at the NAPS 2021 Annual Conference. They are set to teach an upper-level course on “Ancient Magic” in the Spring of 2022.

Regarding service, Daniel is committed to student and institutional shared governance. They have served two years as the SU Religion Graduate Organization’s Co-President, three years as a Syracuse University Senator, and are serving as the SU Graduate Student Organization’s Internal Vice President/Chair of the Senate for 2021-2022. They served on Syracuse University’s Vice Chancellor, Provost, and Chief Academic Officer Search Committee (2021).

When not working, Daniel enjoys the company of their (divin)animal companions, St. Antoni of Guilford (a german shepherd) and St. Sebastian of Bethlehem (a python). They also enjoy collecting minerals and sundry bits of nature, and observing the “old ways” and the Wheel of the Year.