Academic profiles
Meet some of the staff in the Department of Classics and Archaeology with our academic profiles. If you would like to learn more, why not join us at an open day?
Professor of Roman Archaeology
What's your favourite archaeological site and why?
Too hard to choose. I’ve liked (almost) all of them. Caistor Roman town in Norfolk because I’m working on it at the moment, but also San Vincenzo al Volturno in Italy where I worked for about six years. It was idyllic. I’m also fond of Butrint in Albania because it really shaped a lot of my ideas about the past and how we use it. It’s also fabulously picturesque. Aside from the sites I’ve worked at, I love Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall – you go into the museum and the first thing you see is about 100 Roman leather shoes. It exemplifies the way that archaeology opens a window onto the everyday lives of the people who often get left out of history.
Read more from Will...
What is your favourite module to teach and why?
I like teaching the first year introductory modules but I really like my 2nd/3rd year Rome and the Mediterranean module. It’s quite intensive so I see a lot of the students and really get to know them. It’s also the one where I deconstruct everything I told them in the 1st year, which is quite fun. I want to equip them with the means to question everything they read and hear.
What inspired you to teach/take your subject?
I got into archaeology by accident but I was quickly hooked because you meet a huge variety of people and it gave me the chance to travel and to experience places in a way that is completely different from visiting as a tourist. I enjoy teaching, because I get the chance to talk about amazing stuff to people who are interested in it. What’s not to like?
What's not so hot about being an archaeologist?
A lot of practical archaeology is about basic management. You deal with issues like the lorry delivering the site toilets not fitting through the gate. You also deal with local politics a lot, and the odd bit of armed insurrection, but it’s seldom dull.
Associate Professor in Ancient Greek History
What's your favourite module to teach and why?
I enjoy teaching the first-year module Studying the Greek World, which is one of the biggest and most popular modules in the Department. Students of different backgrounds from a wide range of academic disciplines (not just Classics and Archaeology) join this module, and I like introducing them to the wonders of the ancient Greek world and making them believe that anyone could pursue ancient history as long as they’re interested. It is easy to assume that Classics is for the privileged, but it definitely is not.
Read more from Theodora...
If you could travel to any period in history, which would it be and why?
Athens in the fifth-century BC, ie the golden age of Athens. I’d love to hear the Athenians debating matters of politics in the assembly, and to meet Pericles and see whether he is as remarkable a leader and orator as Thucydides depicts him to be. It would be great also to witness the construction of the Parthenon on the Acropolis and to visit the agora, which must be bustling with people and activities!
Who's your favourite classical figure and why?
Very difficult to choose: I like so many of them. Maybe Athena if I could opt for a divine figure. Who isn’t attracted by the multi-faceted nature of her power?
What inspired you to teach/take your subject?
I’ve been very fortunate in having many wonderful teachers in my life, who have influenced my academic pursuits in different ways and inspired in me a love for Greek antiquity. I enjoy travelling in the Greek Mediterranean also: studying ancient ruins in their physical context and reading inscriptions on stone help significantly to deepen my understanding and appreciation of Greek history.
Associate Professor of Archaeology; Director of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies
What inspired you to teach/take your subject?
I was born at the historic town of Tripoli in Arcadia in southern Greece, and my first ‘playground’ was at the ancient town of Mantinea. I owe my passion for archaeology to my father who for many reasons could not pursue his own dream to become an archaeologist, so in a way I studied archaeology for him too. I am a first generation academic and what got me into teaching is my desire to inspire the younger generation to learn about and engage with our human past.
Read more from Chrysanthi...
What's your favourite archaeological site and why?
Difficult question to answer but if I’d have to choose my top one would be the submerged prehistoric town at Pavlopetri in southern Greece. I worked there a few years ago and the archaeology is absolutely amazing – the remains of the Bronze Age town (with evidence for occupation from the Neolithic period too), intramural child graves and chamber tombs lie at a depth of 3-4 metres, and on the shore once stood an extensive cemetery of prehistoric rock-cut tombs. Positioned at the crossroads of southern Greece, Pavlopetri was one of the most important harbour towns in the region providing a safe anchorage to mariners rounding the notorious cape Malea or travelling from the eastern to the western Mediterranean. No wonder why the material culture from the site displays diachronically a range of cultural influences. The site and its surroundings are picturesque too, and you’ll frequently see there caretta caretta sea turtles and flamingos while enjoying one of the most beautiful sunsets in the Mediterranean.
What is your favourite module to teach and why?
I enjoy teaching the first-year introductory modules ‘Great Discoveries in Archaeology’ and ‘Interpreting Ancient Arts and Archaeology’, but my heart is given to my 2nd/3rd year ‘The Archaeology of Mycenaean Greece’ and ‘Origins and Rise of Aegean Civilisation’ modules. These modules give me the opportunity to teach my students about my most favourite people in the past and their achievements: the Minoans and Mycenaeans, two of the greatest European Bronze Age civilisations that set the foundations for the later classical Greek world.
What's not so hot about being an archaeologist?
Having to excavate during a heatwave or dealing with local politics is not hot at all.
University Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Curriculum Leadership); Professor of Classics
If you could travel to any period in history, which would it be and why?
I would like to travel to Rome at the end of the Republic. I’d like to meet Cicero and see if he is as much of a creep as he comes across in his writings, and to see if Caesar is the political wizard that history makes him out to be. I would also like to see if the city really was as run-down, crowded and smelly as it’s sometimes made out to be, and if it really felt like you were living in the end of the Republic.
Read more from Mark...
Who's your favourite classical figure and why?
Catiline – the Republic’s most maligned and misunderstood ‘bogey man’, and a prototype for the modern terrorist, the ‘enemy within’.
Greek or Roman?
Roman: the Romans offer the best of all possible worlds for classics, because there’s so much Greek in them, as well as so much reaction and resistance to Greekness.
What inspired you to teach/take your subject?
Reading historical novels and watching documentaries and dramas set in the classical world when I was a teenager. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History was mesmerising, and I was completely hooked on Robert Graves’ I, Claudius.
What is your favourite module to teach and why?
Early Rome: Myth, History and Archaeology – because this subject has so many academics at each other’s throats, since nobody can really agree about anything in the murky early history of Rome.