Biography

Madalina holds a BA in Classical Philology from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (2009), a MA in Medieval Studies at the Central European University, then in Budapest (2011), and a Research MA in Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven (2013).

In 2021 she defended her PhD at KU Leuven with a thesis on the epistolary collection of Isidore of Pelusium, offering a systematic treatment of the manuscript transmission of the corpus (Greek, Latin, Syriac), and an in-depth historical, theological and literary analysis of a sample of letters. Her PhD thesis was awarded the J.P. Gumbert Dissertation Award 2022 from the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the Universität Hamburg.

In Vienna, Madalina is a Lise-Meitner FWF Fellow (project M 3270, Nov 2022-2024, working on authorial self-fashioning in late-antique epistolary corpora), having previously held a Saltire Early Career Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 2022, at the University of Edinburgh (School of History, Classics & Archaeology). She is also a free research associate at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Leuven.

Projects

FWF-Project "Self-Fashioning in Late-Antique Epistolary Corpora"

Publications

Edited volume

• M. Toca and D. Batovici (eds.). Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 17. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
  
  [Reviewed by Matthieu Cassin in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 106.1 (2022); Joseph Verheyden in the Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 74.3-4 (2022); Yuliya Minets in Church History 90.1 (2021); Bernard Coulie in Le Muséon 133 (2020).]

Journal articles and book chapters

• M. Toca. “The Reception of Isidore of Pelusium in Its Ancient Versions: Latin as a Case Study.” In Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature, ed. by M. Toca and D. Batovici (TSEC 17; Leiden: Brill, 2020), 138-59.

• M. Toca. “The Father-Son Relationship in the Eighth Sibylline Oracle.” Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi 35.1 (2018): 99-107.

• M. Toca and J. Leemans. “The Authority of a ‘Quasi-Bishop:’ Patronage and Networks in the Letters of Isidore of Pelusium.”  In Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity, ed. by P. Gemeinhardt and C. Cvetkovic (AKG 137; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 83-100.

• M. Toca. “The Greek Manuscript Reception of Isidore of Pelusium’s Epistolary Corpus.” Biblische Notizen 175 (2017): 133-43.

• M. Toca. “Isidore of Pelusium’s Letters to Didymus the Blind.” In Studia Patristica 96: Papers presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015, ed. by Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 325-32.

• M. Toca. “The Greek Patristic Reception of the Sibylline Oracles.” In Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches, ed. by D. Batovici and K. De Troyer (BINS 151; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 260-77.

Book reviews

• Stefan Berkmüller, Schriftauslegung und Bildgebrauch bei Isidor von Pelusium (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 143; Berlin–Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020), in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History 73.4 (2022): 858-861. 

• P. Évieux and N. Vinel (eds.), Isidore de Péluse. Lettres III. 1701-2000 (Sources chrétiennes 586; Paris: Cerf, 2017), in Reviews in Biblical and Early Christian Studies.

• B. Bitton-Ashkelony, T. de Bruyn, C. Harrison (eds.), Patristic Studies in the Twenty-First Century. Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Association of Patristic Studies (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), in Augustiniana 1-4 (2016): 247-252.