Dr. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint Laurent, assistant professor and assistant chair in the Department of Theology, has been awarded the inaugural Hagiography Society Book Prize for her book Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches.
The award committee said that Laurent’s book makes a compelling case as to why missionary narratives should be regarded as crucial texts for understanding Syrian Christianity. It draws attention to a sub-genre of hagiography and a linguistic region of hagiographical production that has until now been open only to specialists. The committee said it was an outstanding first book, written in a vivid style and highly conscious of methodological issues.