Barnes named new Clark Chair in history at CCU

Aneilya Barnes, associate professor of history at Coastal Carolina University, has been named CCU’s Lawrence B. and Jane P. Clark Endowed Chair in History.

This privately funded endowment provides opportunity and resources for a tenured faculty member in CCU’s Department of History to advance a scholarly agenda by producing peer-reviewed publications that advance the historiography in the faculty member’s field of study. The Clark Chair is awarded for a two-year period.

Barnes, who joined the CCU faculty in 2007, focuses her scholarly research on Ancient Rome and the roles of women in the early Christian church. She will be conducting research on two projects during her term as Clark Chair. 

Barnes is co-editing a book, “More than Female Disciples: An Examination of Women’s Authority in Early Christianity (1st – 6th centuries),” with the prominent Italian scholar Roberta Franchi of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In another book project, “Gender and Domestic Space in the First Christian Basilicas,” Barnes is applying an interdisciplinary approach to study how the architecture of early Christian buildings and their spatial components provide important and overlooked insights into the active roles of women in the early church. Going beyond the traditional historical practice of textual analysis, this project involves examining evidence from built environments, topography, epigraphy, and funerary monuments. 

The Clark Chair was created in 2012 by a gift from the late Lawrence and Jane Clark of Myrtle Beach. A retired military officer and history professor, Lt. Col. Clark (U.S. Army), with his wife Jane, requested that their gift be used to create an endowed chair in CCC’s Department of History, as well as to fund cultural arts programs and scholarships.