Faculty & Staff

Faculty

Barbara L Burrell

Associate Professor

501 Blegen Library

Barbara Burrell is a Roman archaeologist who has dug at sites across the Mediterranean, including Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Israel. It may have been this diversity that has led to her being chosen as editor of the forthcoming Blackwell's...

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Anna Danielle Giboney Conser

Assistant Professor

301 Blegen Library

5135567379

anna.conser@uc.edu

Anna Conser (PhD Columbia) is a philologist specializing in Greek literature. Her current research focusses on ancient music and performance, Greek drama and lyric poetry, and the digital processing of ancient texts. As part of her first book...

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Jack L. Davis

Professor

305 Blegen Library

5135561939

jack.davis@uc.edu

Jack L. Davis is Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology. In 1993 he came to the University of Cincinnati from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he had taught since 1977. In Greece Professor Davis has directed archaeological regional studies projects on the island of Keos, in the Nemea Valley, and in the area of the Palace of Nestor in Messenia. He participated in the publication of excavations on Keos and on Melos and is an authority in the archaeology of the Aegean islands ("Review of Aegean Prehistory: The Islands of the Aegean," in T. Cullen [ed.], Aegean Prehistory: A Review (Boston: Archaeological Institute of America) 19-94 and C. Shelmerdine [ed.], Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge University Press) 186-208. Other research interests include the history and archaeology of Ottoman and early modern Greece and the history of Classical archaeology, in particular its relationship to nationalist movements in the Balkans. Davis has co-directed regional studies and excavations in Albania, in the hinterlands of the ancient Greek colonies of Durrachium/Epidamnos and Apollonia.
His books include: Papers in Cycladic Prehistory (Los Angeles 1979); Keos V. Ayia Irini: Period V (Mainz 1986); Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands (Los Angeles 1991), winner of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize; Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino (University of Texas Press 1998); A Guide to the Palace of Nestor, Mycenaean Sites in Its Environs, and the Hora Museum (American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2001); An Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the Early 18th Century (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2005); Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2007); Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2013), coedited with Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan; Carl W. Blegen: Personal and Archaeological Narratives (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2015) with Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan and Vivian Florou, and Mycenaean Wall-Painting in Context (Paris and Athens, 2015), edited with Hariclia Brecoulaki and Sharon Stocker. More recent is The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2017), edited with John Bennet. Forthcoming is the publication of his collaborative excavations of a previously unknown Greek temple at Apollonia in Albania (Lockwood Press) and of his Sather Lectures (University of California Press). Davis served as Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 2007 until 2012. Since 2015 he has been codirecting renewed excavations at the Palace of Nestor, together with Sharon Stocker.
In 2017 Davis received the Special Civic Merits Award from the President of Albania.
in 2019 he delivered the prestigious Sather Lectures at the University of California Berkeley, where he held the Sather Professorship.
In 2020 Davis received the Gold Medal for achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America, the highest award granted by his professional organization.
In 2021 he was named a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix by the President of the Hellenic Republic.
Davis is a former director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He is at present a Trustee of that institution as well as an Overseer of its Gennadius Library.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_L._Davis and for a full cv see https://classics.uc.edu/cv/vita_jld_June_2021.pdf
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Steven Ellis

Professor

502 Blegen Library

5135564422

steven.ellis@uc.edu

Steven Ellis (PhD Sydney, 2005) is a Roman archaeologist whose research activities and publications cover ancient cities and urban life. He has conducted fieldwork principally throughout Italy and Greece, but with other field activities in Spain, Portugal, France, Morocco, and Algeria. Steven directs the University of Cincinnati's excavations at both Pompeii (the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia) and Tharros, Sardinia (the Tharros Archaeological Research Project); and co-directs (with Eric Poehler) the Pompeii Quadriporticus Project and (with Timothy Gregory) the 'East Isthmia Archaeological Project' in Greece. The results of these activities are a range of publications that cover field reports to synthetic works, on diverse topics across the field of Classics such as Roman retail spaces; urban waste management; Greek and Roman superstitions; Roman coins; site formation processes; urban and sacred infrastructure; movement in cities; social structures and their hierarchies, especially the urban sub-elites; the use of new technologies in archaeological fieldwork; and the Roman fish-salting industry. In 2011 he edited ‘The Making of Pompeii: studies in the history and urban development of an ancient city’ (JRA suppl. 85, Portsmouth, RI), while in 2018 he published 'The Roman Retail Revolution' with Oxford University Press. More recently (2023), and with Allison Emmerson and Kevin Dicus, he published the first volume of the Porta Stabia Neighborhood at Pompeii, again with Oxford University Press. The recipient of several major grants and fellowships (from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, National Geographic, and the 'Rome Prize' from the American Academy in Rome), his forthcoming work includes further volumes of the Pompeii series with OUP, as well as the publication of his excavations at Tharros. Steven is Professor of Classics and Roman Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati.

Full CV is available

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Florence Gaignerot-Driessen

Assistant Professor

303 Blegen Library

5139576410

florence.gaignerot-driessen@uc.edu

I am an archaeologist specializing in the Aegean world during the Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and Archaic period. I earned my PhD from the Sorbonne, Paris, in 2013. My current research interest focuses on state and social group formation and...

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Eleni Hatzaki

Associate Professor

311B Blegen Library

eleni.hatzaki@uc.edu

Eleni Hatzaki is an Aegean Prehistorian working on Crete with research interests in the archaeology of Prehistoric Knossos, ceramic production and consumption, burial customs and society, site formation processes, and household archaeology. She...

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Caitlin Olson Hines

Assistant Professor (she/her/hers) Affiliate Faculty in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

599B Blegen Library

caitlin.hines@uc.edu

Caitlin Hines (PhD, University of Toronto 2018) is a philologist specializing in Latin and Greek poetry, particularly the works of Vergil and Ovid, and is Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research...

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Danielle L Kellogg

Associate Professor (she/her)

311B Blegen Library

5135562574

danielle.kellogg@uc.edu

Danielle Kellogg's research focuses on the political history and epigraphy of rural Attica, the territory of Athens. Her monograph, Marathon Fighters and Men of Maple, examined the history and identity of Acharnai, the largest of the Athenian...

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Dylan MacMurphy Kenny

Asst Professor (he/him)

Blegen Library

5135563050

dylan.kenny@uc.edu

Dylan Kenny (PhD, UC Berkeley, 2023) is a philologist specializing in Greek literature and philosophy. His current project situates the lyric poet Pindar against the horizon of the intellectual and social transformations of the fifth century BCE.

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Marion W Kruse

Associate Professor

220 Blegen Library

marion.kruse@uc.edu

I am a Roman historian with a broad interest in ancient history and historiography, in particular the historiography of late antiquity. My early work focused on the reign of the emperor Justinian (r. 527-565 AD) and the preeminent historian of his...

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Kathleen M. Lynch

Professor

599A Blegen Library

kathleen.lynch@uc.edu

Kathleen is a Classical Archaeologist who has worked on sites in Italy, Greece, Albania, and Turkey. In particular, she is a ceramic specialist interested in Athenian figured wares from archaeological contexts. Her research currently spans a number of...

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Daniel Markovich

Professor, Department Head

407 Blegen Library

daniel.markovic@uc.edu

Daniel Markovich is a philologist with a broad interest in Greek and Latin rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry, and the ways in which these three types of discourse shape ancient educational texts. He has published on Lucretius (including the...

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Susan H. Prince

Associate Professor

599C Blegen Library

susan.prince@uc.edu

Susan Prince's research interests are in the history of ancient Greek thought and literature, especially the Socratic traditions. Her primary projects are on Antisthenes and the ancient Cynics. Her teaching interests cover Greek and Roman...

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Calloway Brewster Scott

Assistant Professor

Blegen Library

5135563050

calloway.scott@uc.edu

Calloway Scott (PhD, NYU 2017) is a historian of ancient Greece. His research is informed by an interest in the entanglements of science and society. Inspired by turns in medical history and medical anthropology, his current book-project examines...

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Kelly Elizabeth Shannon-Henderson

Associate Professor (she her)

310 Blegen Library

kelly.shannon-henderson@uc.edu

Kelly Shannon-Henderson's research focuses on prose literature, both Greek and Latin, of the Imperial period, particularly the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Her monograph, Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals, examines religious material in the Annals using...

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Zoe Stamatopoulou

Assoc Professor

Blegen Library

5135563050

zoe.stamatopoulou@uc.edu

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Peter Van Minnen

Professor

311A Blegen Library

peter.vanminnen@uc.edu

Peter van Minnen (PhD 1997) is an ancient historian broadly interested in the society, economy, and culture of the Roman Empire, including Early Christianity and Late Antiquity. He is an authority on papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt and made world news in 2000-01 with the discovery of the so-called Cleopatra papyrus. He has taught in Classics and History departments around the world, as well as in Divinity and Law schools. He has held fellowships from Leuven University, the Dutch Academy, Dumbarton Oaks, the American School in Athens, and the Loeb Foundation.
He has taught seminars on Alexandria (Greek papyri), Keos (Greek inscriptions), Latium Vetus (Latin inscriptions), and Roman North Africa, as well as more topical seminars (e.g., religion in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial worlds). He has set specials ranging from the Persian Empire and the economy of Classical Athens to Roman law and Greek and Latin patristics. His students have worked on Late Antique poetry, religion, and urban history, and on the transition from the Republic (or Hellenistic period) to the early Roman Empire from a variety of perspectives (literature, institutions, iconography, coins). Almost all PhDs hold tenure-track academic positions in the US or abroad.
He is currently engaged in two projects: the edition of a family archive from Hermopolis (with Greek athletes in the family) and a study of documents from Alexandria (complementing archaeology and literature; with a web component, https://classics.uc.edu/users/vanminnen/ancient_alexandria/). His publications now number well over 200 and include studies of the archaeological context of literature and documents, the Roman economy, and women in Greco-Roman Egypt. He loves numbers and looks forward to sharing his passion for agriculture, demography, and taxation… Since 2006 he edits the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, which involves one or two graduate assistants.
For more information, see his academia.edu page (https://uc.academia.edu/PetervanMinnen), and for a CV see https://classics.uc.edu/cv/PVM-CV2023-WEB.pdf.

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Matthijs Wibier

Assistant Professor

Blegen Library

5135563050

matthijs.wibier@uc.edu

My research focuses on the political, social, and intellectual history of the Roman Empire (primarily the Principate but with forays into Late Antiquity). I am fascinated by the circulation of texts and information, and what people did with them. This includes studying intellectual traditions, the materiality of texts, and the interactions between texts and society. While I have worked primarily on Roman legal culture and legal literature, my interests span a wide range of topics, including ancient scholarship and philosophy, reading culture and education, Latin and Greek prose, administration and imperialism, and the experiences of individuals beyond the elite men who dominate our evidence. I am a huge proponent of epigraphy, papyrology, and the study of manuscript-based textual transmission.

My research currently has three broad focal points:

(1) The Roman jurists of the earlier empire and the continued circulation of their works in later centuries. I am in the final stages of a monograph on Roman legal scholarship in the Early Empire and, with Professor Dario Mantovani (Collège de France), a large collaborative volume tracing the circulation, use, and reception of Roman legal literature in Late Antiquity. This latter volume is based on the ERC-funded project REDHIS.

(2) The correspondence of the Roman emperors, especially in the second and third centuries CE. I am in the early stages of a collaborative project “Epistulae: The Correspondence of the Roman Emperors”, with Professors Serena Connolly (Rutgers University), Elsemieke Daalder (University of Münster), and Zachary Herz (University of Colorado, Boulder). This project, which will lead to an Open Access online database, has received funding from Rutgers University, the Semple Fund, and the NEH.

(3) The law code known as the Lex Romana Visigothorum or Alaric’s Breviary. Not studied seriously since the 19th century, the manuscripts of this sixth-century collection contain a wealth of additional ancient and early medieval legal materials otherwise lost. The textual tradition as a whole is a monument to legal scholarship of the late Roman empire and the early Middle Ages. Due to its wide circulation, the LRV had a profound impact on the Western legal tradition.

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Rawson Visiting Scholars

Thomas Carpenter

Rawson Visiting Scholar

Blegen Library

5135563050

thomas.carpenter@uc.edu

Thomas H. Carpenter is Distinguished Professor of Classics, Emeritus at Ohio University, where he taught from 1997- 2018. At OU, as the Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities, he was Director of the Ping Institute for the Teaching of the...

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Jan Driessen

Rawson Visiting Scholar

Blegen Library

5135563050

jan.driessen@uc.edu

Jan Driessen has an MA in Archaeology and one in Ancient History, both from the University of Leuven, where he also defended his PhD. He is emeritus professor of Greek Archaeology of the UCLouvain and is honorary director of the Belgian School at...

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Robert Laffineur

Rawson Visiting Scholar

Blegen Library

5135563050

robert.laffineur@uc.edu

After earning a PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Liège (L’orfèvrerie rhodienne orientalisante, 1975), Robert Laffineur became a member of the French Archaeological School at Athens (1976–1978), and later full-time lecturer,...

After earning a PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Liège (L’orfèvrerie rhodienne orientalisante, 1975), Robert Laffineur became a member of the French Archaeological School at Athens (1976–1978), and later full-time lecturer, tenured Professor and full Professor at the University of Liège, teaching ancient Greek art history and archaeology. He was awarded the Delepierre Prize from the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1979).

In 1986, Laffineur founded the Rencontres égéennes internationales (International Aegean Conferences), which were held every two years, initially in Liège and later at foreign universities, including in the United States (Temple University Philadlphia in 1996, Yale University in 2002, UCLA in 2006, and The University of Texas at Austin in 2020), and in 1987, he launched the publication series Aegaeum. Annales d’archéologie égéenne de l’Université de Liège, both of which focused on the archaeology of Bronze Age Greece. For these two initiatives, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (Philadelphia) in 2004.

Laffineur participated in the excavations at Amathus in Cyprus and led the excavations of the French School at Athens in Kallion (ancient Kallipolis in Doris, 1977–1979), as well as those of the Belgian School at Athens in the Mycenaean sector of the acropolis of Thorikos (Attica, 2005–2022), which included GPR and magnetic prospection surveys. He also carried out topographic missions in Crete (in Malia and Palaikastro).

He held seminars on Mycenaean Greece at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Iași in Romania (April 2003), the Francqui Chair Belgium at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (2006–2007) and was a visiting Professor at the Australian Archaeological Institute (July-September 2010).

He was presented with a Festschrift volume, Ra-pi-ne-u. Studies on the Mycenaean World offered to Robert Laffineur for his 70th Birthday, during a tribute session Honouring Odysseus: Celebrating the Work of Robert Laffineur (Athens, American School of Classical Studies, March 3, 2017), organized by Prof. Jan Driessen — the editor of the volume —, with the support of the Belgian Embassy in Athens.

Robert Laffineur was appointed Honorary Consul of the Hellenic Republic in Liège for the provinces of Wallonia in September 2014. In addition to his administrative duties, he organized a series of events and activities in Liège, especially in 2021 to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. The most notable event was a Mikis Theodorakis concert (Axion Esti, Prométhée enchaîné and Concertino crétois) with the Symphonic Orchestra and Choir of the Royal Conservatory of Liege and the Liege Symphony Choir, conducted by maestro Patrick Baton, at the Liege Philharmonic Hall.

Robert Laffineur is a Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown (Belgium, 2010).

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Lynne C. Lancaster

Rawson Visiting Scholar

Blegen Library

lynne.lancaster@uc.edu

Lynne Lancaster is an archaeologist specializing ancient Roman construction and technology. She studied architecture at Virginia Tech where she received her B.Arch. She then earned an M.Phil. and D.Phil. at Oxford University in Classical...

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Tom Palaima

Rawson Visiting Scholar

Tom Palaima founded and directed the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 1986-2014. He is a MacArthur fellow for his work with Linear A and Linear B tablets and sealings and the evidence they provide about the societies of mainland Greece and...

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Research Associates

Carol R. Hershenson

Junior Research Associate

203 Blegen Library

carol.hershenson@uc.edu

Carol is a Classical archaeologist specializing in the Aegean Bronze Age. She has field experience at Troy in Türkiye and in Greece at the Classical sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea, the Early Iron Age settlements at Kavousi on Crete, and the Bronze Age...

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Jeffrey L. Kramer

Junior Research Associate

319 Blegen Library

jeffrey.kramer@uc.edu

Jeff holds an M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in Bronze Age Archaeology from the University of Cincinnati. His archival research interests focus on daily life in historical excavations, especially UC's...

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Sharon R. Stocker

Senior Research Associate

Blegen Library

5135562015

sharon.stocker@uc.edu

Sharon is a professional archaeologist who has participated in excavations in Greece and Albania. She directs the publications program for UC excavations at the Palace of Nestor in Greece. She has served as co-director of archaeological surveys in...

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John Wallrodt

Senior Research Associate

317 Blegen Library

5135562584

john.wallrodt@uc.edu

John has worked in Israel, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Albania in all aspects of archaeological fieldwork. Following his interest in spatial analysis, and in order to make sense of it all, he turned to computers. Within the department, he helps...

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Affiliate Faculty

Susan E Allen

Associate Professor, Department Head, NAGPRA Director

458 Braunstein Hall

5135562584

susan.allen@uc.edu

Affiliate Faculty, Department of Classics
Affiliate Faculty, School of Environment and Sustainability
Affiliate Faculty, European Studies

Dr. Allen's current research collaborations investigate the role of agriculture and climate change in the emergence of social inequality in the Aegean (Greece) and Balkans (Albania, Croatia), the transition to agriculture in southern Europe, and the historical and political ecology of Mediterranean wetlands. As part of her research projects on these themes, she also works with archaeobotanical materials to interrogate formation processes that affect assemblage composition and interpretive potential.

As Co-Director (with Ilir Gjipali, Institute of Archaeology, Tirana) of the Southern Albania Neolithic Archaeological Project (SANAP), she is working toward publication of an edited monograph on their results from surface survey, coring, and excavation at the Early Neolithic site of Vashtëmi and survey and / or coring at several other Early Neolithic sites in the region.

In cooperation with China Shelton (ACOR), she conducts archeobotanical recovery and analysis for the Iklaina Archaeological Project, directed by Michael Cosmopoulos (UMSL), focused on excavation of the Mycenaean site of Iklaina in southwestern Greece.

In the lab, she has been collaborating with graduate student Martha Wendel (MA 2019) to complete analysis and publication of seed and charcoal remains from two sites in northern Albania excavated as part of the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodrës (PASH), directed by Michael Galaty (U. Michigan).

She was recently awarded funding from the University Research Council to facilitate her collaboration with the Cetina Valley Survey (CeVaS), directed by Helena Tomas (U. Zagreb). Her sub-project within CeVaS focuses on documentation of human-environment landscape dynamics in the valley.

Dr. Allen encourages potential graduate students, particularly those with interest in palaeoethnobotany, archaeobotany, ethnobotany, or environmental archaeology, to reach out to her directly.

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Ari B Finkelstein

Associate Professor, Judaic Studies

3510 French Hall

5135566546

ari.finkelstein@uc.edu

Professor Finkelstein is a historian of Jews and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world. His main research focuses on the use and function of Jews and Judaism in the works of Christians and pagans in Late Antiquity. His current book project,...

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Matthew A Kraus

Department Head, Associate Professor of Judaic Studies, Director of Hebrew Program

3428B French Hall

matthew.kraus@uc.edu

Professor Kraus studies the history of biblical interpretation and Judaism in Greek and Roman antiquity. Most recently, he is the author of Jewish, Christian, and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome’s Translation of the Book of Exodus: ...

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Emeritus Faculty

Kathryn J Gutzwiller

Professor, emerita

Blegen Library

5135561942

kathryn.gutzwiller@uc.edu

Kathryn Gutzwiller holds an M.A. in Latin from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. in classics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interests include Greek and Latin poetry, ancient gender studies, literary theory, and the interaction between...

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Ann N Michelini

Professor, emerita

ann.michelini@uc.edu

Professor Emerita Ann N. Michelini works in the areas of tragic drama and Platonic studies. She is the author of two books on tragic drama, including Euripides and the Tragic Tradition. She is also the author of an edited volume, Plato as Author:...

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Michael Martin Sage

Professor, emeritus

michael.sage@uc.edu

At present I am engaged on a source book on Roman warfare to serve as a companion to a Greek one published in 1996. It will contain introductory general essays, essays on specific topics as well as translations of relevant passages. The period...

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Gisela Walberg

Professor, emerita

gisela.walberg@uc.edu

Gisela Walberg is the Marion Rawson Professor of Aegean Prehistory at the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati. Before moving to Cincinnati, she taught for two years at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of...

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Staff

Joe Katenkamp

Financial Administrator

410 Blegen Library

joseph.katenkamp@uc.edu

Joe is originally from Cincinnati. He attended the University of Illinois at Chicago where he received his B.A. in Communications. After graduating he moved to Los Angeles and started his career. In 2001 he moved back to Cincinnati to raise a...

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Charlie J. Kocurek

Program Manager

ARTSCI

5135565924

charlie.kocurek@uc.edu

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Sarah Wenner Wenner

Asst Professor - Adj

Blegen Library

5135563050

sarah.wenner@uc.edu

Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate in Classical Archaeology. She received her BA in Anthropology and Economics from Albion College in 2010 and her MA in Ancient History from North Carolina State University in 2015. She has worked at many sites in Jordan, at...

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Visiting Scholars

Thomas Clements

Visiting Scholar

Blegen Library

5135563050

thomas.clements@uc.edu

Dr. Thomas Clements is a Tytus Fellow from Manchester University workin on "Sparta's Territories: Power and Place in the Ancient Peloponnese, c.800-371 BC"

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