John Ladouceur is a PhD candidate in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity subfield. A specialist in early Christianity, his research interests center on the role of scriptural exegesis in the formation, maintenance, and contestation of imperial discourses in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

His dissertation project, tentatively titled “Monumental Exegesis: The Aksumite Royal Inscriptions and the Christianization of Late Antique Ethiopia,” aims to shed light on a still poorly understood ancient Christian civilization by examining the role of biblical quotations in the Greek and Ge’ez military inscriptions of the fourth-to sixth-century kings of Aksum. While these inscriptions have typically been analyzed for their philological and historical content, he argues that putting them into conversation with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim epigraphical cultures of the late antique Mediterranean world can give us crucial insights into Aksumite scriptural reading practices and processes of social and political identity negotiation. 

Before coming to Princeton John earned an MA in Early Christian Studies from the University of Notre Dame (2020) and a BA in History from UCLA (2017). 

In addition to his research, John has taught courses on ancient and modern religious traditions at several New Jersey correctional facilities through the Princeton Prison Teaching Initiative. 

Most recently, he has become the cataloger of the Princeton Numismatic Collection’s new acquisition of over three-hundred Aksumite coins.