AHMA Newsletter
The newspaper of the Graduate Group of
Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology
May 2007
Jason Schlude and Jeffrey Pearson, editors
Letter from the Chair
This will be my last letter as chair of AHMA. I step down at the end of the spring semester, 2007, after having been chair on three different occasions for a total of more than twenty years. The experience has sometimes been exhausting, more often exhilarating. I have had the good fortune to be present at the creation of the Group and to witness its evolution from a small, struggling, and nearly penniless operation, dependent on administrative indulgence and staff generosity, to the achievement of top rank among interdisciplinary programs on antiquity in this country and abroad. A collaborative effort brought about this gradual transformation over a period of nearly four decades: the donation of time by faculty members from several departments, the collective support of staff, increasing resources from the Graduate Division as our reputation grew, and an impressively intelligent, dedicated, and collegial assemblage of students. We have now awarded more than sixty PhDs, and our graduates hold academic positions in high quality institutions that span the country from California to Massachusetts, and several abroad from Oxford to Haifa. This is a distinguished record, and I am proud to have been associated with it.
The year 2006/7 has brought further successes. Lawrence Stager, Professor of Near Eastern Languages at Harvard and Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum, delivered the seventeenth annual Pritchett Lecture. His presentation on “The Houses of Ancient Israel: Domestic, Royal, and Divine,” delivered to a gathering that filled the Alumni House, was an admirable exemplar of interdisciplinary scholarship. The coming Pritchett Lecturers are Professor Paul Cartledge, the eminent Greek historian at Cambridge University, and Patricia Cox Miller of Syracuse University, an expert in the religious traditions of late antiquity.
The numbers of applicants to AHMA continues to rise. Sixty-three candidates applied this year, a large number of whom we would have been delighted to accept. But we could offer admission only to a handful. Four will be entering in the fall from Amherst, Brown, Georgia, and Rutgers, with a range of interests that include Roman archaeology, Phoenician and Greek colonization, Egyptology, and Iranian history. They possess an impressive collection of skills and credentials.
Three recent graduates will step into new positions in the fall of 2007. Jon Frey and Ken Jones have obtained tenure-track posts at Michigan State University and Baylor University, respectively, and Jessica Nitschke will begin a three-year appointment at Georgetown University. Elisabeth O’Connell secured a temporary but highly prestigious position as Research Curator in the Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department at the British Museum. Both Michael Laughy and Joel Rygorsky won fellowships to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for 2007/8, adding to our long record of placing students at that institution. Three students have (or will be) advanced to candidacy for the PhD this year: Carolynn Roncaglia, Joel Rygorsky, and Jason Schlude. Noah Kaye earned his MA with an outstanding examination in Hellenistic history and material culture.
The Joan B. Gruen Prize, honoring the memory of Joan Gruen for her many years of service to the university in fund-raising activities for graduate student support, goes to an AHMA student who composed the best paper of the year. This year the award went to Ryan Boehm for his essay on “The Greek Communities in the Parthian Empire.”
I wish to congratulate all who earned these accolades and appointments. The year has been a most satisfying one. And I thank everyone who has accorded me the privilege of serving as chair of AHMA through these rewarding decades.
-Erich Gruen
Spotlight on the Nemea Center
The Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology continues to provide opportunities for students and scholars to learn about and do research in classical archaeology both on the Berkeley Campus and in Greece. Under the direction of Dr. Kim Shelton, who oversees and coordinates the teaching, research and educational activities of the Center, the program has expanded with the Berkeley Summer Session Field Schools. These opportunities provide hands-on experience for undergraduate students on the site, and creates research and teaching opportunities for graduate students, the future leaders and educators in the field.
In June 2006, we worked in the Sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea and in the site museum. Four teams made up of one graduate and three undergraduate students were assigned an area of the site that had been excavated over several past seasons, in which they identified important ceramic deposits. The teams conducted on-site and archival research using notebooks, reports and plans. The pottery was sorted, analyzed and identified in the Museum workroom. This material was then used to create a photographic record, an informational database, and a team analysis of the deposits and their importance in the understanding of the site's history. Students also assisted in a photographic project in the museum exhibition and in the study of a monumental statue base near the 4th century BCE temple, called the Nu structure.
Dr. Shelton also brought with her to UC Berkeley an on-going excavation and research program at Mycenae where in July 2006, a four-week field school was conducted at the site of Petsas House, a domestic and industrial structure in the main settlement of Mycenae. Four graduate and twelve undergraduate students undertook excavation, rotating in teams over five trenches in various rooms of the building, a ceramics factory and storage facility destroyed late in the 14th century BCE, and in the workroom of the site museum. Students were primarily responsible for observation and recording of the excavation but also participated in the digging, sweeping, drawing, measuring and field conservation; especially the recovery of several carbonized wood beams and intricate cleaning of a deposit of wall paintings. In the museum, an analysis of artifacts was conducted from the cleaning of sherds through sorting, cataloguing and vase restoration.
David DeVore in the Museum at Nemea
Both groups went on guided tours of other sites/museums in the local area and beyond (including Athens, Olympia, Epidaurus, Delphi and Corinth), visited festivals and islands, and hiked up mountains and fortresses in the afternoons and on weekends. The field schools at Nemea and Mycenae introduce students to all major elements of methodology and analysis currently used in classical archaeology and will teach them practical archaeological skills in a real research environment. They will also provide valuable research time and insight into materials while stimulating publication potential. Two AHMA students, Joel Rygorsky and David DeVore, were involved with the projects in 2006 and three Groupies will be coming along this year!
-Kim Shelton
Spotlight on Tel Dor
This was UC Berkeley's eighteenth season at Dor, under the general direction of Professor Ilan Sharon (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The UC Berkeley/University of Washington team was led by Andrew Stewart (History of Art & Classics), assisted by Allen Estes (UCB PhD NES 1996) as field director. The team totaled 11 staff and 40 volunteers (30 on-site at any one time), some of whom elected to dig “early” (Sikil, Phoenican, Israelite, Assyrian) material with the Israelis. It included five graduate students on scholarships generously funded by the College of Letters and Science and a number of undergraduates partially funded by the Gilbert Foundation through the Archaeological Research Facility. The six-week excavation campaign lasted from late June through early August. Classics, AHMA, NES, History of Art, and Anthropology Department staff members included Becky Martin (assistant field director), Rebecca Karberg (area supervisor), Ryan Boehm, Evan Elliott, and Dana diPietro (unit supervisors), and Nicole Child and Raina Chao (recorders). Also on staff were John Yelding-Sloan (area supervisor; professional archaeologist and longtime Dor veteran) and Ian Milliken (unit supervisor; Dor veteran ‘05).
Although the Israeli-Lebanon-Hezbollah war started just before mid-season, we continued to dig even so. A few volunteers elected to return home, but most stayed, as did all of the staff, the latter gritting their teeth and hourly repeating the mantra that “when bombs fall the safest place is down a hole, so dig faster and more carefully!” Yet all joking apart, Ilan Sharon and I are deeply grateful to everyone who remained, especially those under heavy pressure from families and friends to quit and call it a day. Fortunately, we were just out of range of the Katyushas, but not of the bigger rockets, a few of which passed overhead en route to Hadera and Caesarea. And of course we could hear (and sometimes see) the explosions in Haifa and Atlit. Nevertheless, we finished out the season as planned, although because of the drop in personnel, we didn't get quite as much done as we'd hoped.
In the “pit”, we focused again on the Big Building (an extensive Roman complex that at various times housed a bath, an industrial establishment for processing liquids, and what may have been a bakery) and its Hellenistic predecessors. In the Big Building, we completed the excavation of the hypocaust, and on its western side a hard slog through its largely robbed foundations finally got us down to the late Hellenistic period and the continuation of what may be a palatial complex. The Israelis excavated its southeastern quadrant in the 1990s, and we now have most of its southern and western walls. Though apparently gutted inside, it remains the best candidate for the location of our amazing garland and mask mosaic discovered in 2000. One bonus was a group of fragments of a fine Attic red-figure krater showing Dionysos, Ariadne, and attendant maenads.
Meanwhile, new topsoil squares to the west of the “big building” uncovered part of a Crusader cobbled floor (dated by a fragment of a bifacial Christian inscription found under it, perhaps from the altar rail of the early Byzantine church). This may be the forecourt of the Crusader citadel. Beneath these cobbles and the heavily damaged remains of the Roman east-west street, we came across more of our late Hellenistic “Monument.” This now turns out to be not one but two rectangular buildings placed cheek-by-jowl next to each other, whose plans suspiciously resemble small (5x8 m) Hellenistic tetrastyle prostyle temples. Do we now have a home for the numerous Doric colonnade fragments and other architectural blocks that we’ve been discovering over the past few years? We fervently hope so.
So the later occupational sequence on this side of the city is now clear. In this single huge insula, the south-westernmost one of the city, the Hellenistic free-standing monumental buildings were gradually encroached upon by smaller structures, then gave way entirely to small, early Roman industrial establishments. Then around 100 CE came a resurgence of monumental (but not necessarily non-industrial) building. Around 230 CE, the area was abandoned along with the rest of the city, for reasons unknown, and about a thousand years later reoccupied by the Crusaders when they came to build the fort of Merle on the site’s southwestern promontory. A rich haul.
In November, however, we received some bad news. Some time ago the UC Regents decided to suspend all Education Abroad programs in countries covered by a State Department Travel Advisory, and after last summer’s events, the UC Berkeley Administration has now decided to extend this to all UCB programs in these countries. The key issue, as always in such situations, is liability, and the lawyers are calling the shots. So as of December 1, we are officially prohibited from recruiting under the University’s name and from returning to Israel until the Advisory is lifted. After 21 years, over 1000 volunteers through the program, over 120 staff trained in archaeology, and not a few of them placed in tenured or tenure-track jobs, we are now forced to shut down until the Palestinians and Israelis make peace.
We’re not finished yet, however. In 2007, a US team will return to Dor, led by my co-director, Professor Sarah Stroup (UCB PhD in Classics 2000; now Professor of Classics at the University of Washington). Completing the excavation of the Hellenistic “Monuments”/temples(?) will be its top priority; a short study session will also take place. Recruitment of volunteers and staff has already begun. Prospective diggers are invited to visit our website at sscl.berkeley.edu/~teldor/ for further information, or to contact Sarah Stroup (scstroup@u.washington.edu) directly. Those interested in digging “early” periods (Sikil, Phoenican, Israelite, Assyrian) should sign up with the US team but are welcome to dig with the Israelis.
-Andrew Stewart
New Students
Laura Pfuntner writes, “I have spent my first year in the Group making progress on my major field (Roman History), gaining some background in art history and archaeology, and becoming an enthusiastic (some might say rabid) Cal football fan. I plan to spend most of the summer in Berkeley working on my MA thesis on Sicily under the Roman Empire and improving my Greek and German in anticipation of exams next semester. I also look forward to taking a few weeks off in June to do some hiking and sightseeing in the Sierra Nevada and British Columbia.”
Amy Russell has spent the year adapting to life in the US, with various successes and failures along the way: she has become a keen Cal football fan, but still finds 8.5x11 paper disconcerting. She is now happily settled in an apartment near campus and is returning her attention to work. Having started with her language exams, she will be doing PhD exams next year after a summer teaching back in Oxford. She wants to thank Groupies past and present for all their help with the move and the process of adjustment.
Continuing Students
Ryan Boehm has spent much of the last year taking his remaining language exams. With these finally out of the way, he plans on taking his field exams and qualifying next year. This summer he will be participating in the 2007 season at Nemea before returning to Berkeley to begin studying for the first written exam.
Amelia Brown reports, “Since last year I've been an associate member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, researching and writing my dissertation on civic life at Corinth and other ancient cities of Greece in Late Antiquity. I've been mainly living at the School's facilities in Ancient Corinth, and I've also shared in American School trips to archaeological sites in Albania and Bulgaria. I published my first article in a Conference volume of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edited by Hal Drake. I've also given some papers at the AIA and ASOR annual meetings, as well as at the first international conference of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department of Beijing University in Beijing, China. Besides academics, I continue to sail competitively, and follow my 10-year relationship with civil engineer Graham Elliott to Southeast Asia, Australia and Malta, where he is on the verge of opening a five-star hotel. We are planning our wedding for September 2008.”
David DeVore has completed a quiet third year filled with seminars on subjects as diverse (and interesting!) as Roman provincial history, Plotinus, political monuments, and the alien in Greco-Roman antiquity. He enjoyed teaching L&S R44 and Latin. Although he passed his French examination, Trevor Murphy’s Latin survey so humbled him in the spring that he will risk incurring Erich Gruen’s wrath by delaying his Latin exam until November. This summer, he plans to stay in Berkeley and hone his Latin, resurrect his Hebrew, and work a paper on Domitian’s supposed persecution of Christians into a conference paper. He will, however, have to take some time out miss the anticipated Erichfest to marry his bride, Sandra Garcia, on June 9 in Santa Barbara.
Timothy Doran is finishing his fourth year in the program. This year he was a GSI for History 4A, Introduction to Western Civilization, and is now teaching Latin for the first time. He taught Introduction to Roman Civilization, Classics 10A, as sole lecturer last summer for the second time. He reports that teaching Latin is more work than he anticipated. This year he passed his Greek and Latin language examinations and will shortly take his German examination and then start on his field examinations. In October he and his wife became parents of little Dominika Doran. They arrived at the hospital at 8 AM and Dominika was born at 9:32 AM: his wife was only in active labor for one hour. The baby weighed 8 lbs, 7 oz., measured 19 inches tall, has already doubled her birth weight, and is doing very well. This was their first child. In other arenas, Tim is presently working on developing his collection of vintage neckties and other memorabilia from the 1920s through the 1940s and welcomes any contributions.
Emily Haug notes, “This year I passed two language exams (French and Greek) with the hopes of passing my Latin exam at the end of the semester (following which a celebratory excursion to Napa is on the horizon!). I gained another round of enjoyable teaching experiences this year as a GSI for Western Civilization and Classical Mythology (which gave me an opportunity to practice utilizing my own web site). It is a bit hard to believe that after this summer, next year will be spent preparing for my PhD exams. Lastly, I will give a paper at the 2007 Association of Ancient Historians conference at Princeton this year thanks to work completed for Prof. Noreña's seminar on Roman Imperialism and the West.”
Noah Kaye: “Having passed the MA stage of our program, I have continued this year with language study and an interesting Sather Seminar. My plans now include a summer at the American Numismatic Society in New York. I've heard from other Group students that the program is an excellent way to work on developing a research identity, and I look forward to that opportunity. At the ANS, I will continue with studies that focus on Hellenistic history. In upcoming semesters, I will assume the job of coordinating the Group's Noon Colloquia, formerly organized by Joel Rygorsky. Joel has begun to initiate me, and I hope that some former Group students will be able to give papers during my tenure.”
After spending the month of February in Egypt documenting Byzantine settlement in the necropolis at Hagr Edfu with the British Museum Epigraphic Expedition, Elisabeth O'Connell is settling into her one-year position as Research Curator in the Museum's Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department and a North London apartment. The Roman and Byzantine Egypt collections are keeping her busy while she prepares to file her dissertation and present papers in London, Oxford and Paris this year. She has also been offered a Yale post-doctoral fellowship, which she has deferred to 2008/09.
Jeffrey Pearson has had an extremely busy year, taking two PhD exams (covering Hellenistic history and archaeology and the material culture of Greco-Roman Egypt), teaching Latin and Greek Myth, and studying intensive Arabic. A month in Syria this summer and return to Egypt in the fall for excavation will certainly appeal to his continued fascination with the Middle East, both ancient and modern. His New Year’s resolution to do more fly-fishing has—at the time this newsletter goes to press—resulted in only one 2007 outing with fellow Groupie and outdoor enthusiast Jason Schlude.
Carolynn Roncaglia has been busy this year finishing up her PhD exams, but is looking forward to a summer in Greece, where she should be able to improve her modern Greek and visit her favorite inscriptions. This spring she'll also be moving from Oakland to the Monterey Peninsula, which should provide a pleasant atmosphere for writing her dissertation next year.
Jason Schlude had a busy year on all fronts of life. He married Katrina Pyclik on July 8, followed by a wonderful ten days in Hawaii, and finished his qualifying exams in the fall, passing his oral exam on November 15. He also thoroughly enjoyed teaching discussion sections for History 4A: The Origins of Western Civilization and Classics 28: The Classical Myths. He will continue work on his dissertation, Parthia and Empire, this summer and next year here at Berkeley.
Cai Thorman writes, “I've made it back after a 1 1/2 year medical/parental absence, and I am currently finishing up my official third semester and preparing for my MA and German exams. What I've learned: that having a child is potentially the most humbling experience of a human being's life; that having a child and being a graduate student is tantamount to total ego obliteration; that one can still attend classes, write papers and take exams without a viable ego; that perhaps this is a preferable state of consciousness…”
Faculty
Marian Feldman reports, “My big news is the addition to my family of Lisa and Tara, born January 7, 2007. They are both doing well, while mom is hoping for a good night of sleep one of these years! They're looking forward to meeting everyone in AHMA down the line and will be in training shortly as mom’s research assistants.”
Carlos Noreña writes, "The past year has been busy and rewarding. I taught three new courses: undergraduate surveys of the ancient Mediterranean world (4A) and the Roman Republic (106A), and a graduate seminar on cultural change and imperial power in the Roman West. In terms of research and writing, I have been doing my part to sustain the current craze for handbooks and companions, with chapters on “The Early Imperial Monarchy” (Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies), “Coins and Communication” (Oxford Handbook of Roman Social Relations), and “The Ethics of Autocracy in the Roman World” (Blackwell's Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought), all due to appear in 2007-08; an article on Pliny's correspondence with Trajan will also appear in the summer issue of AJP. I am also working on an edited volume of my own, The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual (to be published in the Yale Classical Studies series), and a book manuscript on the figure of the emperor as a unifying symbol, which I hope to complete while on leave next year. In my free time I continue to enjoy the Bay Area with my wife, Elizabeth, my son, Carlos, and my daughter, Laura, who was born in April.”
Martin Schwartz published several items in 2006: “The Hymn to Haoma in Gathic Transformation: Traces of Iranian Poetry before Zarathushtra,” in A. Panaino (ed.), The Scholarly Contribution of Ilya Gershevitch to the Development of Iranian Studies; “The Gathas and Other Old Avestan Poetry,” in G.-J. Pinault and D. Petit (eds.), La Langue poétique indo-européenne: Actes du colloque de travail de la Société des Études Indo-Européennes, Paris 22-24 octobre 2003, Société Linguistique de Paris, Collection Linguistique XCI; “From Healer to Hyle: Levantine Iconography as Manichean Mythology,” in J. Lerner and L. Russell-Smith (eds.), Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology I; “How Zarathushtra Generated the Gathic Corpus: Inner-Textual and Intertextual Composition,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 16. Forthcoming is another article in a memorial volume for R.E. Emmerick: “How Greco-Latin, Hellenistic and Late Antique Egyptian, and Byzantine techniques of divination illuminate a set of inscriptions of the Sasanian high priest Kardir.” Professor Schwartz also lectured over the past year on Zarathushtra and the Gathas in the Zoroastrian Lecture Series at Stanford University and at the Society of Scholars of Zoroastrianism Conference in Chicago. Other talks included “Otherwor(l)dly Journeys: Mantic and Mantric Techniques in Ancient Iran” at the Religious History of Europe and Asia Conference in Bucharest, and “Charon’s Charisma: Ancient Greek Poetics of Death and Early 20th century Rebetic Songs,” sponsored by the Classics Department of UC Berkeley. More recently, the KQED television program Spark interviewed Professor Schwartz, in his own living room, on his klezmer music collection!
Raphael Sealey is pleased to announce the publication of two new articles, "Aristotle, Athenaion Politeia 57.4: Trial of Animals and Inanimate Objects for Homicide," in CQ 56 (2006) 475-485, and "Democratic Theory and Practice," in Loren J. Samons II, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles, 238-257.
David Stronach received the Northern California Phi Beta Kappa award for excellence in teaching in 2006, and his final report on his excavations at Tepe Nush-i Jan, co-authored with Michael Roaf, is scheduled to be published this summer. In late May he will join Felix Ter-Martirosov of Yerevan State University in conducting new excavations at Arin-berd (ancient Erebuni) in Armenia.
Alumni
Ory Amitay (PhD 2002) announces the following publications: “The Story of Gviha Ben-Psisa and Alexander the Great,” in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 16 (2006) 61-74; “Some Ioudaio-Lakonian Rabbis,” Scripta Classica Israelica 26 (2007); “Why Did Alexander the Great Besiege Tyre?” Athenaeum 95 (2007); “Simon the Just in his Historical Contexts,” Journal of Jewish Studies (forthcoming). He also adds, “I am racing to complete the manuscript of From Alexander to Jesus, a reworking and elaboration of my dissertation. Outside academia, I have become involved in local politics, especially in the campaign to put Deut. 15:1-11 into action. Also, I have taken up bass guitar (which is a lot of fun, and very easy for beginners).”
Jorge Bravo (PhD 2006): “Spring has finally arrived in Minnesota, and some brave flowers have even begun to appear. Everyone here is quick to point out that temps could go back down to freezing, but my spirits are still up! I am currently a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Classical Languages at Carleton College in Minnesota. Now in my third term, I have been teaching a range of courses including Latin and Greek philology and the study of ancient material culture (note to current students: your language skills are hot commodities!). In the fall term I got to design and teach a survey course on Ancient Greek Religion, which was a lot of fun. What I have been enjoying most is having small classes of very bright students. One of our majors has even been accepted to Berkeley in Classics, so you may see her there next year. Lorin moved out here with me and he has a job as a landscape architect for a firm in St. Paul. We bought a house in Minneapolis near some nice trails and a lake, and I have a reverse commute down to Northfield, where the college is located (nothing like a Bay Area commute). Winter wasn't so bad for me, and our dog Apollo (a Siberian husky) thoroughly loved his first real winter. This summer I will be working on revising my dissertation, getting it ready to be part of volume IV in the Nemea Excavations series.”
Dan Caner (PhD 1998) has finally learned how to teach something about everything in the ancient world at the University of Connecticut. He is currently enjoying a sabbatical, which has been spent partly at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Hebrew University, and partly at home in Connecticut, finishing a volume of sources related to the Sinai and Negev regions in late antiquity. Last fall he published an article, “Towards a Miraculous Economy: Christian Gifts and Material Blessings in Late Antiquity,” the result of about three years of research on gifts and gift giving in early church and monastic circles.
Jack Cargill (PhD 1977) writes, “The main event of my academic year is my impending retirement at the end of the spring semester, after teaching ancient history at Rutgers University since 1981. Before landing this tenure-track job, I was something of a poster-boy for persistence and not giving up, having taught temporarily and/or part-time at six other universities (including Berkeley), before and after becoming one of the first Groupie PhD's in 1977 (not to mention the high school in Houston where I was teaching when I got the Rutgers job). With six books published—even if only two of them helped me professionally—I’m content to call it a career, though presumably I'll find other things to write in retirement in my native Texas, and I expect to continue to attend the annual conventions of the Association of Ancient Historians.”
Matthew Gonzales (PhD 2004) continues apace in his appointment as Assistant Professor of Classics at Saint Anselm in Manchester, NH. Two of his articles, one on Ares, one on Enyalios, will be appearing in Syllecta Classica and ZPE in the near future. His revised dissertation manuscript has cleared the first editorial hurdle and is now being reviewed by the Specialists. Look for it in a year or so. Matt was awarded a faculty research grant for this summer, during which he hopes to revise for publication a couple of neglected seminar papers, which will lay the foundation for a new manuscript on Herodotus.
Celina Gray (PhD 2002) writes, “After three years in Canada at McMaster University, I have returned to the US! This year has been spent as the Blegen Fellow in the Classics Department at Vassar College. Since I'm a Vassar alumna, it's been particularly wonderful to be here. I've been teaching a reduced load, working on my book manuscript and re-adjusting to life at a liberal arts college. Over the summer, I'll be moving to Connecticut to begin a new position at Wesleyan University, while my husband, Kostis, will continue at Clemson University. I'll be in Athens for much of the summer, so I hope to see people there!”
Ken Jones (PhD 2006) and his wife have spent a very enjoyable year in Walla Walla,
Washington, where he has been teaching in the Department of History at Whitman College. Their daughter, Elena, is fast approaching her second birthday. Ken has been at work on a paper exploring the use of the Herodotean and Isocratean theme of Europe vs. Asia as anti- and occasionally pro-Roman propaganda in the East. This project was for the most part hindered by first-year teaching and applying for jobs. The latter (and he hopes the former!) came to a successful conclusion: next fall Ken will be joining the departments of History and Classics at Baylor University.
Leah Johnson (PhD 1997) contributes, “Warm greetings to all! In addition to teaching, I have been kept extremely busy this past year with administrative work. As the new coordinator of the program in humanities at John Cabot, I was charged with developing the classical studies curriculum in order for the university to further capitalize on its location in Rome in its efforts to increase student enrollment. To this end, in addition to augmenting the number and variety of classics courses here to better reflect what is offered in standard undergraduate classics curricula, I added a number of museum based seminars in areas such as numismatics and epigraphy and hired new faculty to help teach them. Also, with a view to starting a year-round archaeological field school for our students, I have been working with our new faculty and the local archaeological superintendencies to obtain an excavation permit. To date, we have been offered the opportunity to collaborate with the superintendency of Latium in the excavation of a republican-era Sabine villa associated through a dolium stamp and other material with the family of the Aurelii Cottae or on a new joint project at Ostia with faculty and students of the University of Rome, at a spot still to be determined. While I am still trying to assess which project will be most feasible, I must admit that it is nice to have such great choices! Finally, after I noticed that there are numerous venues to further international scholarly exchange among archaeologists but not really anything similar for ancient historians, in concert with several other ancient historians working here in Rome, in order to promote and facilitate international scholarly exchange in the history of the ancient Mediterranean world, a new organization has been established called the International Society of Ancient Historians. We are currently in the process of developing a website for this new organization and are planning, in conjunction with other universities and national academies here, to hold in Rome next year its inaugural conference. Anyone, faculty or students, who would like to become involved in any way in the latter initiative, please feel free to contact me at ljohnson@johncabot.edu. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!”
Four years after his resignation from the State Department, Brady Kiesling (MA 1982) is living in Athens, working on a book on the Greek terrorist group 17 November. In July and August 2006, he spent five weeks in southern Armenia with John Cherry and Sue Alcock's Vorotan Project. He then spent September and October in the US to promote Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower (Potomac 2006, paperback edition 9/07). One stop included Black Oak Books in Berkeley. Reviews have been favorable. He published an article on US diplomacy in the March 2007 Utne magazine and he writes a monthly foreign policy column for the Athens News, "Diplomat in the Ruins," while also helping run the Hellenic-American Democratic Association. His web site with texts can be found at www.bradykiesling.com. He always welcomes AHMA visitors.
A. Bernard Knapp (PhD 1979) writes, “Having been appointed Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology in Glasgow University's Department of Archaeology in the year 2000, beginning with the autumn term of 2007 I become Research Professor of the same, which means I will only be conducting seminars in our MLitt Program in Mediterranean Archaeology. Glasgow may not be the greatest city on the planet, but the University is a marvelous institution, now some 550 years old, fourth oldest in the UK, after Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews, respectively. My colleagues in the department specialize in everything from the Scottish Neolithic to the historical archaeology of Glasgow, and five of us have research focuses in Mediterranean archaeology (from its earliest prehistory to the 20th century AD). It's a great place to work. Early in March, Oxford University Press accepted for publication a massive new monograph entitled Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus: Identity, Insularity and Connectivity. This represents the ultimate revision of my PhD thesis in the AHMA program at Berkeley, even if it's not at all recognizable as such. This new book is scheduled to appear in March or April of 2008.
Yannis Lolos (PhD 1998) sends his greetings from Cincinnati. This semester he is on sabbatical from the University of Thessaly and came to the Department of Classics of the University of Cincinnati as a Tytus fellow. He has been there for about three weeks now and is starting to “feel the midwestern atmosphere.” He says, “Campus and downtown are impressive indeed (with great architecture), but the greater Cincinnati area has little to offer in comparison to Berkeley and the Bay area. I consider myself lucky to have spent my graduate years there rather than here. Yet, the Blegen library is great, and my plan while here is to finish a book on the Via Egnatia (the Roman road which stretched from the Adriatic to Constantinople) and a couple of articles on the survey project that I have been directing in Sikyon. I invite the Groupies to visit the project's bilingual website (http://extras.ha.uth.gr/sikyon) and would encourage the brave ones to apply to come. On the personal front, last summer I got married to Leda Costaki, a fellow archaeologist and former member (and now staff) of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.”
BarbaraMcLauchlin (PhD 1985) reports, “I retired (after 25 years) from San Francisco State, where Isabelle Pafford is currently holding the fort and my old, and as yet un-cleaned, office. Having rather quickly tired of watching soap operas and eating bonbons, I set out to discover the wonders of the Bay Area. I've been volunteering as a docent at Crab Cove Marine Reserve and Visitor Center in Alameda. This allows me to push small children into the mudflats and keep their parents from picking up "cool stuff" from the protected areas. I've also become a birder (good grief!!) and have been chasing birds around the state. In fact, I'm writing this from Arcata. It's 5am. It's raining. And I'm getting ready to go on a "dawn chorus" hike with other birders who have come from around the country to celebrate the annual spring migration festival known as "Godwit Days." Clearly, I'm having WAY too much fun.”
Eric Orlin (PhD 1994)writes, “Last spring I received tenure at the University of Puget Sound, where I teach everything from Greek and Roman history to Homer to 18th century Britain and Nazi Germany (separate courses, thankfully!). This year I have been on sabbatical, working on a manuscript on the relationship between Roman reactions to foreign religious elements and the development of Roman identity, largely concentrating on the Middle Republic. I also have an article on several Augustan religious reforms and their relation to the reconception of Roman identity at that time, which will appear in AJP, probably in the fall of 2008. Of course I am looking forward seeing everyone in June at the Erichfest!”
John Pollini (PhD 1978) writes: “Greetings from Athens, where I am Whitehead Professor of Archaeology this year at the American School of Classical Studies. The School’s trips have been exhausting but very rewarding. It has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know many people in the field and to gather a great deal of material evidence for my present book project on "Christian Destruction and Desecration of Images of the Classical World: Studies in Religious Intolerance in the Ancient World." This winter I offered a seminar at the School on this subject. In addition to School trips, I have visited a number of quarries and other sites and museums with my good friend and colleague Olga Palagia and her husband Eugene. In May, I plan to participate in Bob Bridges’ two-week trip to central Anatolia. After that, my wife Phyllis, who deserves a break from her real estate work in Los Angeles, will come to Greece with our sons Gaius and Drusus for two and half weeks before we all head back to L.A. We will be renting a car and traveling around Greece, visiting some of the places the School didn’t go to on the fall and winter trips. Phyllis and I will also be celebrating our 40th anniversary this coming June. This past year I delivered papers at the VIIIth International ASMOSIA Conference, at Aix-en-Provence, at a conference on the Art of Warfare at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, and at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. I also chaired two sessions on Roman art at the AIA meetings in San Diego. This fall my article on a spectacular bronze Archaic Greek gorgon handle in an American private collection appeared in the Annuario della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene e delle Missioni Italiani in Oriente 83 (2005) 235-46, and a review article of Eric Varner’s book, Mutilation and transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, appeared in Art Bulletin 88 (2006) 591-98. Three other articles will be appearing soon, one of which I am dedicating to Erich Gruen. Two other articles on two unpublished, magnificent Roman portrait busts have recently been accepted for publication. Next year I have received a Guggenheim and ACLS to finish work on my book on Christian destruction. The amount of material evidence that I have found just in Greece for this project has been truly amazing.”
Molly Richardson (PhD 1998) reports, “John Pollini and I are both in Athens, this year, he as Whitehead Professor of Archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies (2006-2007) and myself as Assistant Editor of Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (1997-).”
John Pollini and Molly Richardson on a Saturday outing at Mt. Penteli
Sharon Steadman (PhD 1994) writes, “Girish and I are still plugging along at SUNY Cortland in central New York. Girish (1994, History) begins his fifteenth year here in the fall! He will be the History Department Chair beginning this fall. He continues to work on the subject of 19th century Russia and the legal tradition, but is currently expanding the scope of his research and publications to include the legal tradition in Europe and beyond. I begin my ninth year in the Anthropology Department and have so far successfully avoided becoming the chair! I am, however, the Coordinator of the International Studies major, a program with wonderful students, and I also serve as the Director of our small ethnographic Brooks Museum. Both positions keep me very (too?) busy! I am currently writing a book on the Archaeology of Religion, due to the publisher by next summer (gulp) and another Berkeleyite, Jenni Ross (NES, now at Hood College), and I are putting together an edited volume on the Near East. I continue to direct fieldwork at Çadir Höyük in central Turkey and look forward to my time there this coming summer. Nothing to complain about on my end! Hello to all past and current Groupies.”