22/04/2026
🥳Wir haben Zuwachs bekommen!🥳
Heute stellen wir euch Rocío Suárez Vallejo vor, die unser Institut seit März unterstütz:
🔸Research interests
My research focuses on the religious world of Late Antiquity in the western Mediterranean. I am particularly interested in how Christian ritual spaces were constructed in rural contexts, as well as in the role of the natural landscape in shaping these spaces. I also study the formation of hagiographical topoi in saints’ lives and the symbolic and religious responses to situations of climatic uncertainty during this period.
🔸Current Projects
I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher supported by the FemCareer Fellowship, developing the project NEXUS: Networks of Sanctity, Lived Religion and Climate Risk in the Post-Roman West (6th–7th Centuries). This project explores how Christian communities in Hispania, Gaul and Britain responded to climate-related challenges (such as droughts, floods, and crop failures) during the sixth and seventh centuries, from a religious perspective.
🔸Fondest memory of your time as a student
Without a doubt, my Erasmus experience in Rome. Attending classes on Roman antiquity while walking through the Forum and combining academic life with weekend visits to museums and archaeological sites made it truly unforgettable.
🔸Favorite quote (from a book, movie etc.)
“The mountains are calling and I must go” (John Muir, Nature Writings)
🔸A book you would recommend
I would recommend The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg, a seminal work of microhistory and the history of mentalities, remarkable for its ability to reconstruct the belief system of ordinary people from fragmentary sources.
🔸Favorite Meal
Any homemade Spanish dish: tortilla de patatas, croquetas, paella, Andalusian gazpacho… although I must admit I am also a fan of Schnitzel!
🔸An advice you would give to new students
Try not to worry too much about the future. It is important to trust the process: with effort, patience and, certainly, a bit of luck, opportunities will eventually come your way.