2014 –  present     
Area Editor 'Roman Religion', The Oxford Classical Dictionary (fifth edition)

2013 –  present     
Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Cognitive Historiography (http://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.php/JCH)

2012 –  present     
Member of Editorial Board, Entangled Religions (http://www.er.ceres.rub.de/en/)

2010 –  present     
Associate Professor, Classics, Toronto

2006 –  present     
Associate Editor, Roman History and Religion, Phoenix: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada

2006 –  present     
Co-editor, 'Forschungsbericht Römische Religion', Archiv für Religionsgeschichte

2014     
Research Fellowship Jerusalem

2013     
Research Fellowship Konstanz

2010     
Research Fellowship Bochum

2005 –  2010     
Assistant Professor, Classics, Toronto

2005     
Habilitation Erfurt (Antike Religionsgeschichte)

1999 –  2005     
Wiss. Assistent, Religionswissenschaft, Erfurt

1999 –  2003     
Area Editor 'Greek and Roman Religion', Der Neue Pauly / Brill's New Pauly

1996 –  1999     
Junior Research Fellow, Oxford,

1998     
D.Phil. Oxford (Ancient History)

1994     
M.A. Tübingen (Greek and Latin Philology)

The project reconstructs the religious lives of migrants in the city of Rome, contextualizing them within the socio-political, economic and demographic determinants of city life. Studying the religious affiliations of migrants can provide an insight into how societal ties were shaped and affiliations modified, and how religious identities took shape. First, the project investigates the pragmatics and the materiality of the religious activities of migrants. Second, it reconstructs the semantics they deployed to validate (or invalidate) the religious choices they were making (or choosing not to make) – semantics that ranged from imitation and accommodation to rejection of locally available choices and outright conflict. Third, it enriches current debates through new hypotheses concerning the nature and development of religious pluralism in Roman antiquity.

Although it has been observed that the Roman Empire’s expansion and the adoption of new deities and cults into Rome's pantheon necessitated the constant redefinition of the Roman locality’s cultural and religious identity, the demographic reality of mass migration and the social consequences of socio-economic and ethnical diversity seriously undermine any postulated link between religion and locality as the expression of a straightforward and uncontested "Roman" identity. Imperial Rome, a densely populated metropolis with highly mobile ethnic, cultural and social networks, becomes a laboratory where religion can be studied as a conduit for the many (trans-) Mediterranean flows of religious ideas, ritual practices and deities through network ties that undercut 'national' or cultural boundaries. They call into question all essentialist definitions of what religion in the city of Rome meant.

This project collects, analyzes, and reassesses the available data pertaining to ethnic networks in Rome. In particular, I focus on the various groups of Eastern immigrants to Rome; the Judean diaspora community; the Christ-followers; and their religious functionaries. I apply recent research on diasporic religion, which suggests that immigrants develop plural religious identities and networks of relationships that are conceptually grounded in their places of origin and in their new localities; they become "trans-migrants". The need to negotiate plural identities usually results in various degrees of accommodation and religious hybridization, which become the sources of religious change through diffusion in shared local networks.

Forthcoming     
A. Bendlin, Religion, Rome, and Italy: The 'Bacchanalian Affair' of 186 BCE Revisited.

2016     
A. Bendlin, "'Sodalician Associations'? Dig. 47.22.1 pr. and Imperial Government", in: W. E. Arnal/R. S. Ascough/R. A. Derrenbacker Jr./P. A. Harland (Eds.), Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus’ Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, vol. 2 (Leuven 2016) 435–464.

2013     
A. Bendlin, "The Urban Sacred Landscape", in: P. Erdkamp (Ed.), A Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge/New York 2013) 459–477.   

A. Bendlin, "Religion at Rome", in: M. Gibbs/M. Nikolic/P. Ripat (Eds.), Themes in Roman Society (Oxford/New York/Toronto 2013) 191–218.

2011     
A. Bendlin, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of Divination: Oracles and their Literary Representations in the Time of the Second Sophistic", in: J. A. North/S. R. F. Price (Eds.), The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford 2011) 175–250.

A. Bendlin, "Associations, Funerals, Sociality, and Roman Law: The collegium of Diana and Antinous in Lanuvium (CIL 14.2112) Reconsidered", in: M. Öhler (Hrsg.): Aposteldekret und antikes Vereinswesen: Gemeinschaft und ihre Ordnung (WUNT 1/280; Tübingen 2011) 207–296.