Maj. Christopher M. Blunda, Ph.D. - Virginia Military Institute
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Maj. Christopher M. Blunda, Ph.D.

Maj. Christopher M. Blunda, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Office: 363 Scott Shipp Hall

Phone: 540-464-7470

Email: blundacm@vmi.edu

Fields: History of the Ancient Mediterranean

Honors and Awards

  • VMI Wilbur S. Hinman Jr., ’26 Research Award – Arts & Humanities, 2025 
  • VMI Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, 2024 
  • Doris G. Quinn Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2019-2020 

Assistant professor Christopher M. Blunda specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of the late Roman Empire (A.D. 200-600). Before coming to VMI in 2020, he received a B.A. in Classics from Cornell University, an M.T.S. in The History of Christianity from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

The collection he co-edited with Susanna Elm, The Late (Wild) Augustine, focuses on the last decade of Augustine’s life (420-430), underscoring the themes and concerns that led Augustine to articulate several of his central theological notions in the most radical fashion. Blunda’s book project, tentatively titled Dislodging Augustine: Text, Authority, and the Contours of the Christian Past in Gennadius of Marseilles, investigates the contested origins of the western theological tradition during the Semipelagian Controversy.

At VMI, he is the Gates Cambridge Scholarship coordinator, the assistant coach of the rock-climbing team, and has advised several honors theses. He is the recipient of the Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr. ’26 Research Award (2025), which recognizes superior achievement of a cadet in research at VMI, and the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award (2024).

Courses Taught

Ancient Greek History
History Capstone
Introduction to Historical Methods
The New Testament in Context
The Roman Republic
The Roman Empire
The Third Century Crisis
World History I and II

Publications

Books

  • Elm, Susanna, and Christopher M. Blunda (eds.), The Late (Wild) Augustine. Brill/Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021. 

 

Book Chapters

  • “Responding to Retractationes: The Reception of De ciuitate Dei in Gennadius of Marseilles’s De uiris illustribus 39.” In Magnum Opus et Arduum: Content and Reception of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, edited by Marina Giani, Anthony Dupont, and Gert Partoens. Augustinus – Werk und Wirkung. Brill/Ferdinand Schöningh, forthcoming 2026. 
  • “Salvian the Homilist: A Fifth-Century Gallic Magister and his Audience.” In Vox Praedicatoris: Latin Patristic Sermons, Their Transmission, and Their Reception (4th–15th Centuries), edited by Nicolas de Maeyer, Gert Partoens, Shari Boodts, and Anthony Dupont, 615-637. Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 98. Brepols, 2025. 
  • “Rewilding the Late Augustine in Fifth-Century Gaul: Gennadius of Marseilles’s De uiris illustribus.” In The Late (Wild) Augustine, edited by Susanna Elm and Christopher M. Blunda, 181-211. Augustinus – Werk und Wirkung 11. Brill/Ferdinand Schöningh, 2021.