Claire Sotinel

Claire Sotinel is a Professor of Ancient History at l'Université de Paris-Est Créteil (Paris 12 Val de Marne University). She is an expert on Italy in late antiquity, religion, society, and prosopography.

Education Sotinel received her PhD from Paris-Sorbonne University in 1993. Her doctoral thesis was entitled La Vénétie chrétienne au VIe siècle (The Christian City of Venice in the Sixth Century). Her PhD was supervised by Luce Pietri.

Career Sotinel was a lecturer at the University of Bordeaux-III 1994–2004. She was appointed Professor of Roman History at the François Rabelais University, Tours, in 2004. She was appointed as Professor of Ancient History at l'Université de Paris-Est Créteil in 2008.

Sotinel was a contributor to the Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, an international project to create a prosopography of early Christianity, initiated in 1951 by H. I. Marrou and continued by Andre Mandouze in 1978 after Marrou's death. The Prosopographie was divided geographically, and Sointel contributed to the weighty two-volume prosopography on Italy (313–604), edited by Charles Pietri and Luce Pietri published in 1999. The Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire has transformed the study of late antiquity.

Sotinel publishes research in French, German and English. Her work has been described as 'insightful', 'thorough', and 'incisive', as well as 'detailed' and 'brilliant'. Her theoretical approach understands a 'transformation' of late antiquity rather than a catastrophic failure.

At l'Université de Paris-Est Créteil she is a Director of Research.

Sotinel was a By-fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge in 2001, and was a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford in 2008.

Sotinel is a member of SopHAU (Society for Professors of Ancient History in Universities) and of the French Academy in Rome. She is vice-president of the jury of the Château de Cheverny Historical Comics Prize.