Travis W. Proctor (NHC Fellow, 2025–26)

Travis Proctor is an associate professor of religion at Wittenberg University (Ohio). He received his PhD in Ancient Mediterranean Religions from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in religions of the ancient Mediterranean, with a focus on the histories of Christian cultures in the ancient world (ca. 50–300 CE). His research draws on perspectives from cultural studies, gender studies, and the environmental humanities to demonstrate how the histories of religious cultures have continuing significance for society today.

His first book, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture (Oxford University Press, 2022), explored how early Christian theorizations of demonic bodies influenced ancient understandings of cosmic “ecosystems,” and how such historical perspectives may inform contemporary environmental ethics. Dr. Proctor’s other research interests include environmental history, animal studies, space and material culture, and ritual studies. His work has appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Harvard Theological Review, Studies in Late Antiquity, and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History.

Selected Publications

• Proctor, Travis W. “Fallen Angels and the Christian Body in Tertullian’s On the Veiling of Virgins: A Multispecies Exploration.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 2 (June 2023): 364–81.
• Proctor, Travis W. Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• Proctor, Travis W. “Books, Scribes, and Cultures of Reading in the Shepherd of Hermas.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 73, no. 3 (July 2022): 461–79.
• Proctor, Travis W. “Hospitality, not Honors: Portraits and Patronage in the Acts of John.” Harvard Theological Review 115, no. 1 (February 2022): 69–89.
• Proctor, Travis W. “A Cartography of Kinship: Domestic Space, Tomb Cult, and the Re-Mapping of Ephesus in the Acts of John.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 29, no. 4 (Winter 2021): 463–93.