Department of Classical Studies
Ph.D (Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology) University of California, Berkeley, 1992.
M.A. (Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology) University of California, Berkeley, 1987.
B.A. (Hons), Dip.Ed. Macquarie University, 1980.
I've been at the University of Pennsylvania for over thirty years now and in that time have had the good fortune to teach many wonderful students. Some have gone on to academic careers, completing PhDs in fields such as Classics and Sociology, while others have created careers in the military, on Wall Street, and in professions such as medicine and the law. It is a real source of pride for me that graduate students who have worked with me are now teaching at places such as Notre Dame and Brooklyn College and are embarked on active careers as scholars and teachers.
My research has moved across a few areas, not necessarily closely connected. Some years ago I wrote on ethnicity at the local level in a book on ancient Phokis and later returned to this topic, editing a volume for Blackwell on ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean world. I also developed some ideas in this area in a series of papers on Delphi and Kalapodi, exploring network theory as a way of understanding the development and role of sanctuaries in their regional settings. Between these projects I wrote a study of cattle in the Greek world that addressed a whole set of questions around cattle, from the empirical (who owns the herds, where are they raised, what do cows cost in the 5th century) to the interpretive (why are there so many myths about cattle, what lies at the heart of sacrifice). The book was an absolute blast to write and reminded me of how lucky we are to work in a field that allows us to do research in areas we love. More recently, in 2018, I published a New History of Ancient Greece, with Thames and Hudson. Check it out. The illustrations are fantastic!
I have been fortunate also in collaborations. The first was with my Leiden colleague, Ineke Sluiter. We organized a Penn/Leiden colloquium on Landscape, and our co-edited volume appeared in 2016. Currently I am collaborating with Giorgia Proietti (Trento) editing a volume on Memory, Space and Mindscapes in Ancient Greece, and with Kim Beerden (Leiden) and Irene Polinskaya (KCL), editing a volume on The Sacred in the Ancient Mediterranean. The project looming, however, is my collaboration with Hans Beck (Münster) and Christy Constantakopoulou (Athens) editing the forthcoming Oxford History of the Classical Greek World, (seven volumes!)
Aside from that, Oxford will shortly publish Centaurs and Snake-Kings, my study of Hybridity in Greek Culture, due our later in 2024.
Greek epigraphy
Greek social and political history
Greek sanctuaries
Cattle of the Sun: Herding and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece (2010) [purchase]
The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis (1999) [purchase]
Blackwell's Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean (2014)
(With Ineke Sluiter) Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity (2016)
A New History of Ancient Greece (2018)
(undergraduate) Greek History, Demosthenes, Greek World after Alexander, Rhetoric and the Community, Religion and the Polis
(graduate) Problems in Greek History; Greek Epigraphy; Polybius; Greek Sanctuaries
I am a member of the Society for Classical Studies, and the Archaeological Institute of America. I am on the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies and have served on the Publications Committee of the School. In 2013/14 I enjoyed a year in Athens as Whitehead Professor at the American School. Currently I chair the Admissions Committee of the American School.
