Andrew (Drew) Wilburn

  • Professor of Classics
  • Chair of Archaeological Studies

Areas of Study

Education

  • BS, Randolph-Macon College, 1996
  • MB, Univ Maryland College Park, 1998
  • MA, University Michigan Ann Arbor, 2004
  • PhD, University Michigan Ann Arbor, 2005

Biography

Drew Wilburn (Andrew T. Wilburn) has been teaching at Oberlin since 2005. His research focuses on the archaeology of ancient magic in the Roman Mediterranean and village life in Graeco-Roman Egypt.

While at Oberlin, Drew has taught courses in ancient history, Greek and Latin, including Magic and Mystery in the Ancient World, the Ancient City, Wild and Crazy Emperors, Egypt after the Pharaohs, the History of Greece, the History of Rome, the Roman Historians (in Latin), and Thucydides and Lysias (in Greek).  

As a PhD student at the University of Michigan, he was a regular member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and a Fulbright fellow to Cyprus. Drew has excavated at a number of ancient sites in the Mediterranean, including the Athenian Agora, Corinth, Tel Kedesh, and Caesarea in Israel, and Abydos in Egypt.

Drew’s book, Materia Magica : The Archaeology of Magic in Egypt, Spain and Cyprus came out in paperback in 2016. Special thanks are owed to the talented and dedicated OC undergraduates who worked with Drew as research assistants: Ploy Keener ’09, Chris Motz ’09, Eush Tayco ’09, Gabe Baker ’1), Lauren Clark ’11, Laura Wilke ’11, and Emily Thaisrivongs ’12.

Focusing on three sites in the Mediterranean—Karanis in Egypt, Amathous on Cyprus, and Empúries in Spain—Drew attempts to discover magic in the objects of daily life from antiquity. He suggests that individuals frequently turned to magic in their daily lives, particularly in times of crisis.

Local forms of magic may have varied, and the only way that we can find small town sorcerers is through the careful examination of archaeological evidence.

Drew is excited to be embarking on a number of new projects, some of which involve students in his research. Recently, he has been studying the role that magic plays in architecture, investigating the placement of protective features in houses and other buildings.

He is thrilled to be working on a collaborative project with former student Ryan Reynolds ’14, and current students Miranda Rutherford, Samantha Mater, and Olivia Fountain to create a GIS map of the site of Karanis in Egypt, excavated by the University of Michigan from 1924-1935.

Preliminary results of the work ias available on the Karanis Housing Project website. 

Fall 2024

Elementary Greek — GREK 101

Magic and Mystery in the Ancient World — CLAS 201

Senior Project — ACHS 300

Spring 2025

Elementary Greek II — GREK 102

History of Rome — CLAS 104

History of Rome — HIST 129

Senior Project — ACHS 300

Notes

Drew Wilburn Visited Students at Oberlin Elementary School

September 29, 2022

Drew Wilburn continued his work with the third grade classes at Oberlin Elementary School, sharing information about archaeology. For the past 5 years, with a small pandemic break, Professor Wilburn has worked with the third grade team as they explore the IB curriculum, "Who we are in Space and Time." Students participated in the analysis of a "Mystery Cemetery," which helps the third graders analyze a series of "graves" from a fictional culture, based in part on teaching tools from the Archaeological Institute of America.

Drew Wilburn is collaborator on Books of Karanis Project; is principal investigator of the Karanis Housing Project

July 21, 2021

Professor of Classics Drew Wilburn will be a collaborator on the Books of Karanis Project, for which C. Michael Sampson, University of Manitoba is the Principal Investigator. 

The Books of Karanis was recently awarded a $94,000 Insight Grant from Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council. The Books of Karanis will contextualize seventy-four fragmentary books from the ancient site of Karanis, a Greek, Roman, and Egyptian settlement occupied from around 200 BCE  to 600 CE. The collaborative project brings together the research expertise of papyrologists, literary specialists, and archaeologists to reconstruct ancient Greek literary culture. The research project is investigating who read these texts, how they might have read them, and in what contexts reading took place.

Wilburn will bring archaeological expertise through his work as the principal investigator of the Karanis Housing Project, which has been developing a digital map of the archaeological site and populating the map with all of the finds from the University of Michigan excavations (1924-1935). The Karanis Housing Project includes current student research collaborators Emily Hudson '22, Grace Burns '23, Elliot Diaz '23, Henri Feola '23, and many former Oberlin students. 

News

This Week in Photos: A Walk in the Park

September 25, 2020

On any given day a walk through Tappan Square could lead to a performance, art exhibit, or even a wedding day photo shoot. On this day the park is many things for many people.

Teaching in the New Normal: Professor Drew Wilburn

April 14, 2020

These days, the classroom has taken on new meaning for both faculty and students at Oberlin. In this edition of Teaching in the New Normal, Wilburn explains how an activity in one of his courses took on new meaning during this time of transition.

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