Department of Classical Studies
PhD in Ancient History, 2001
Associate Professor of History, UC-Berkeley
Carlos Noreña's research focuses on the history of the Roman empire, especially in the first three centuries CE. His first book, Imperial Ideals in the Roman West (2011), examined the figure of the Roman emperor as a unifying symbol for the western empire, and argued that the widespread circulation and replication of a particular set of imperial ideals, and the particular form of ideological unification that this brought about, not only reinforced the power of the Roman imperial state, but also increased the authority of local aristocrats throughout the western provinces, thereby facilitating a general convergence of social power that defined the middle Roman empire. In addition, he is co-editor (with B. Ewald) of The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual, Yale Classical Studies vol. 35 (2010). Professor Noreña also works on the material and visual cultures of the Roman empire; the topography and urban history of the city of Rome; textual production and aristocratic self-representation in the early empire; political thought in the Roman world; and comparative empires. His current projects include An Atlas of Urbanization in the Roman Empire, a collaborative project that aims to produce a series of maps on urbanism, urban networks, and urban connectivity in the Roman world, and State and Society in the Early Roman Empire on the Roman empire as a particular configuration of power. He is also in the early stages of a larger project exploring the relationship between ecology, state power, culture, and social order in the Roman empire.