Faculty Updates, Spring 2011
John Oakley was awarded the prestigious Plumeri Award for his exemplary achievements in teaching, research, and service to the College. He has recently published a volume in German in the “Corpus of Roman Sarcophagus Reliefs,” a 140 year old project under the aegis of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. Oakley’s volume includes many of the mythological subjects depicted on Roman sarcophagi made in Athens during the second and third centuries AD. His study focuses on the iconography of these scenes and their interpretation in their Greek and Roman contexts.
John Donahue assumed the position of Chair of the department in the summer of 2010. He continues to work on a sourcebook on food and drink in the Graeco-Roman world, to be published by Continuum Press in 2012.
Georgia Irby spent a fortnight in Scotland in September to participate in the "Scientists And Professionals In The Ancient World" Conference at St Andrews. Her paper "Geographika sine ira et studio? Authorial voice and Self-presentation in Roman imperial Geographical Texts" focused on how the language of one early Roman geographer, Pomponius Mela (1st century CE), reveals complex tensions between two competing cultural identities, native of Spain and citizen of Rome.
Naama Zahavi-Ely finished her dissertation, Voice and Persona: The Convention of Changing Speakers in Biblical HebrewPoetry and Its Use in the Book of Jeremiah. She loved teaching a new seminar on grain, wine, and oil in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.
Vassiliki (Lily) Panoussi was delighted to teach some of her favorite courses this year: Greek Historians, Greek Tragedy, Vergil's Aeneid, and Introduction to Latin, all in the original Greek and Latin. She continues working on her book project, Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women's Rituals in Roman Literature and presented two papers at conferences: one on Ovid's story on the Roman goddess Mater Matuta at a conference on Gendered Approaches in Ancient Greece and Rome at UVa and one on Statius' Achilleid at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. Professor Panoussi was also a member of a few college-wide committees and enjoyed learning about the day-to-day life of the College and getting to know so many colleagues from other departments. She is extremely pleased to have been named Robert and Sara Boyd Term Distinguished Associate Professor.
Barbette Spaeth recently received the College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Governance Award. The award honors faculty members who devote special efforts to helping their colleagues through committee memberships and other services to departments, programs, Arts & Sciences, and College committees. Professor Spaeth directed the new Rome/Pompeii Study Abroad Program for William and Mary in the summer of 2010, and participated in the Colloquium on Material Culture and Ancient Religion in Israel and Jordan. She was on leave this past academic year, editing the "Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions" and working on a book tentatively titled "Memory, Cult and Identity in Roman Corinth," for which she received an international research stipend from the Memoria Romana Project funded by the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
Bill Hutton was recently named the Class of 1955 Term Distinguished Associate Professor for his many accomplishments in research and in teaching.
Maria (Molly) Swetnam-Burland will be in residency at the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut in Berlin for Fall 2011. For Spring, MSB will be in residence at the Burnham library in Cincinnati, to use their library and archive resources.
