Unfinished Christians

Georgia Frank is Charles A. Dana Professor of Religion at Colgate University.

"In Unfinished Christians, Georgia Frank seeks the sensory and affective experiences of non-elite Christians in late antiquity. She finds them in workshops, nighttime prayer, songs, and processions, and she comprehends them through the metaphor of craft...Frank's lyrical prose, sensitive insights, transdisciplinary reading, and deep endnotes make this a joyous and enriching contribution to early Christian studies. But Unfinished Christians is also a model for readers in other subfields of the humanities who seek to integrate text, material, and sensation in understanding the formation of religious practices and subjectivities." (Material Religion) "This is a book that is easy to read and elegantly argued...[I]t breaks new ground and makes an important contribution both to lived ancient religion research and, by virtue of its interest in affect, to the increasingly large body of literature on the history of the emotions in late antiquity." (Vigiliae christianae) "The subjects of Georgia Frank's Unfinished Christians are elusive - 'ordinary Christians,' as she calls them...Almost by definition, they leave little mark on the historical record. And yet most late ancient Christians would have fallen into this category. How, then, might we gain access to their lives and experiences, however partial and indirect that access might be? This is the challenge that Frank takes up in this carefully researched and beautifully written book." (Church History) "Frank offers innovative approaches to the study of non-elite late antique religion. We are still in many ways with the elite-this is inescapable-but Frank's case for a 'peripheral perception' is welcome in broadening new perspectives and, perhaps even more helpfully, ways of thinking about elite texts. The study is effective in revitalizing our thinking on ritual behaviors and the feelings these evoked." (Studies in Late Antiquity)