Nadya Williams, Ph.D.

NadyaWilliams81@gmail.com @NadyaWilliams81

Classicist and Historian

I write about war, motherhood, and the early church. Usually not all three in the same project.

SELECTED ESSAYS

Children and Motherhood

Writing at Burger KingNadya Williams writes about being both a mother and a writer. What takes priority? What about children rendered invisible by their parents’ aspirations?

A Post-Classical Perspective on Valuing Children During the Back-to-School SeasonNadejda Williams on the dignity of children.

The Dancing Children of Stalingrad - CurrentEighty years later, childhood is again a casualty of war

What Child Is This? - CurrentA new law prompts nagging questions about the value of human life

The Only Way is Up - Front Porch RepublicIt is a terrifying responsibility every single day, for a preschooler’s capacity to find ever creative ways to put herself in danger does not always match up with the parent’s ability to foresee said dangers. And yet, without the wonder of exploration, how could anyone ever truly learn about the world?

Military History, Ancient and Modern

Genocide and the Imago DeiNadejda Williams on cost-benefit analysis.

Evangelicals Need More Military History (But of a Theologically Orthodox Kind)Two weeks after Russian tanks first rolled into Ukraine, the Time Magazine’s March 14 issue boldly proclaimed “The Return of History” with an image of a

Can Writing (And Reading) Military History Be an Act of Compassion? - CurrentAeschylus prompts us to consider other ways of seeing war—past and present

Politics, Ancient and Modern

Bad Citizens in a Democracy - CurrentThe Athenian experiment gives us hope

Politics and the Petting Zoo - Front Porch RepublicWhat if our expectations of politicians whom we mock or despise are simply unrealistic and guided by the standards of this world? The faith of some regular Americans in their ability to achieve social reform already amazed de Tocqueville in the 1830s. But this mindset, flowing so naturally from the much-lauded Protestant work ethic lulls us into this optimistic feeling that somehow we can just muscle our way to a perfect solution or compromise, if only we work hard.

Conspiracy or Hoax? - CurrentThe fading of a republic yields harbingers aplenty

Russia, Israel, and Other Times and Places

Gorbachev’s Legacy: Moscow (Still) Doesn’t Believe in Tears - CurrentOver three decades after his resignation ended the USSR, how much has changed?

The Cake of Many Layers: Walking a City through Time - Front Porch RepublicTo walk a place is to open the door to the possibility that you will grow to love it. With time, you could get to know it in an intimate way. Streets or roads or wild forest paths that we walk for the first time can be the object of wonder, even if sometimes also mingled with fear and mistrust.

“Joshua Was Here” - CurrentWhat are the politics of excavating the past in modern Jerusalem?

Literary and Theological Reflections

Once Upon a Time Near VeronaReading Roman poet Claudian’s poem “The Old Man of Verona,” Nadya Williams finds that idealizing rootedness is more pagan than Christian.

The Roman Bathsheba: A Narrative Without GodThe story sounds familiar in some respects. A member of the royal family, enthralled with the beauty of a married woman in his city, secretly raped her

Redeeming Email: Electronic Epistolography for the Glory of GodEvery morning, grasping for dear life that first crucial cup of coffee of the day (possibly in the mug that truthfully admits that I am “Tired as a

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